If there is anybody who can defuse pro football’s controversy over underinflated footballs, it is a Manhattan federal judge with a history of encouraging fast resolutions to perplexing problems.
The judge, Richard M. Berman, quickly defined the ground rules in his first written orders after the N.F.L. and the players’ union clashed over Commissioner Roger Goodell’s four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady: that settling the case is a priority, the heated rhetoric must stop, documents will be public, and Goodell and Brady will come to court.
Berman is the right judge to navigate the pressures of the Brady-Goodell showdown, said Judge William H.