If, as legal pundits have suggested, the success or failure of the NFL's appeal of Judge Berman's ruling depends on the political leanings of the judges who were hear the case, Tom Brady is in line for yet another victory over Roger Goodell.
The names of the three judges who will hear the case were released today, and two of them -- Robert A. Katzmann and Denny Chin -- were appointed by Democratic presidents (Katzmann by Bill Clinton in 1999 and Chin by Barack Obama in 2010). Judges appointed by Democrats are thought to be more sympathetic to labor, and thus, presumably, more inclined to agree with Judge Berman's interpretation of how Goodell abused the power granted him in the Collective Bargaining Agreement when he imposed, and then refused to reduce, a draconian penalty on Brady for what was, at most, a minor rules infraction that was never definitively proven.
The third judge, Barrington D. Parker, was appointed by a Republican president, George W. Bush, in 2001.
In a Quick Slants podcast earlier this year, legal expert Michael McCann explained the importance of politics in the appeals process (conversation on the appeals process begins at 18:27; McCann's address of the political issue begins at 22:42):