AP
Apart from the question of whether Commissioner Roger Goodell possesses sufficient independence to ever serve as the arbitrator in cases involving NFL teams and NFL players is the question of whether he possesses the basic competence to do so.Unlike some of his predecessors, Goodell isn’t a lawyer. And an arbitration definitely is a legal proceeding.The first question for any legal proceeding is determining the legal standard to apply. In an appeal, sometimes the entire process starts over again from scratch (the Latin-loving lawyers call that “de novo” review). Most appeals apply deference to significant portions of the work that was done by a lower tribunal.