Excellent query. And it's hard to respond to that query without first reading about her decision. It's a 16-page paper, so they tell us. But we've yet to see it.
The NFL has not yet made the choice public or the NFL Players Association. The union said it doesn't know in response to our inquiry regarding whether the decision will be made public. A text message and email asking about the matter have not yet received a response from the league.
The judgment must be made public. Freely, openly, and in the open. Not as a personal item leaked to a journalist on the NFL payroll (figuratively speaking) or who has put someone at 345 Park Avenue on the Christmas chocolate wish list. The NFL and NFLPA must immediately post it on their respective websites.
People must be able to read it if the league wants the general public to support its decision. to check the available proof. Which it wasn't. And how she arrived at the judgment that Watson had broken the rules and needed to sit out six games.
The identities of the four accusers whose allegations led to the suspension need to be omitted from the decision. (And perhaps they are already.) It would be regrettable but not unexpected if the league decided against doing that.
The NFL's claim that it wasn't sufficient to change the identities of the collaborating workers in the Washington case and that the only way to protect the witnesses was to conceal all of the information would be shown as being illogical if the names of the accusers were kept secret.
If the league publishes Judge Robinson's decision without mentioning the accusers' identities, there will be more pressure on them to follow suit with Beth Wilkinson's findings in the Washington case.
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