UPDATE: After the NFL asked the players for an adjournment of the appeals hearing, an angry Jonathan Vilma and his lawyer Peter Ginsberg walked out of the appeals hearing today. "It's really a shame," Ginsberg told USA TODAY Sports' Jarrett Bell.
Vilma isn't hopeful of getting his year-long suspension thrown out or reduced. "Roger Goodell has taken three months to tear down what I built over eight years. It's tough to swallow. I have been linked to a bounty and it simply is not true," Vilma told the Associated Press. "I don't know how I can get a fair process when he is the judge, jury and executioner. You're assuming it will be fair, but it's not."
The NFL wants to reconvene the hearing at 1:45 p.m. ET. The adjournment was proposed when the sides bickered over whether the league had turned over the evidence three days prior to the hearing as the CBA requires. Ginsberg complained the NFL didn't meet the 72-hour deadline since the league didn't send the evidence packet until Friday afternoon and not 10 a.m. The NFL apparently interpreted the deadline as three calendar days, which would have meant anytime on Friday.
The NFL proposed the adjournment to give the players the additional time to review the evidence, but that didn't satisfy Ginsberg.
It's unclear whether the three other players being represented by the NFLPA, Anthony Hargrove, Will Smith and Scott Fujita, will return to meet with the commissioner this afternoon.
UPDATE: The three other suspended players Scott Fujita, Anthony Hargrove and Will Smith arrived at roughly 10 a.m. with NFLPA lawyers Tom DePaso and Richard Smith. The three players hustled past media without comment but issued a statement via email 10 minutes prior to arriving:
We have purportedly been disciplined by the Commissioner for alleged activities that the National Football League has grossly misrepresented to the public.
We are in attendance today not because we recognize the Commissioner's jurisdiction to adjudicate regarding these specious allegations, but because we believe the League would attempt to publicly mischaracterize our refusal to attend. We will not address the substance of the NFL's case because this is not the proper venue for adjudication, and there has been no semblance of due process afforded to us.
As veteran players of 11, 9 and 9 years in this League, we are profoundly disappointed with the NFL's conduct in this matter. We know what the NFL has publicly said we did, and the Commissioner has chosen to try to punish us and disparage our characters based on semantics, not facts. Words are cheap and power is fleeting.
Shame on the National Football League and Commissioner Goodell for being more concerned about 'convicting' us publicly than being honorable and fair to men who have dedicated their professional lives to playing this game with honor.
New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma, accompanied by his attorney Peter Ginsberg, was the first key participant to arrive at league headquarters in New York for the appeals hearing in the Saints bounty scandal.
A relaxed Vilma strolled through the doors at 9:35 a.m. in preparation for the 10 a.m. meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. When asked how it felt to take on the league, Vilma simply told USA TODAY Sports' Jarrett Bell "What's right is right. We're on two different pages. Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of it."
Yesterday, independent filmmaker Sean Pamphilon, who taped the now-famous audio of former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams imploring his players to injure certain San Francisco 49ers in their NFL playoff game, cast doubt on the quality of the NFL's investigation, "This whole thing has been a joke," Pamphilon told USA TODAY Sports.
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