[TV orNotTV] More NFL BS: "New" Policy on Domestic Violence Changes Nothing

[PGage]

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell issued a memo yesterday announcing that players found to have committed acts of physical violence will: "Effective immediately...be subject to a suspension without pay of six games for a first offense, with consideration given to mitigating factors, as well as a longer suspension when circumstances warrant." A second offense would trigger an indefinite suspension of at least a year, although a player could apply for reinstatement. The Los Angeles Times describes this as "the strictest mandatory punishment for first-time domestic violence offenders" (http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-nfl-domestic-violence-20140829-story.html) an evaluation that seems to have quickly become the consensus among the sports media. This evaluation is not just inaccurate, it is the complete opposite of the truth. Nothing has changed.

I was at the Giants game yesterday afternoon, and heard about this when I got home. At first I was impressed, but there were a few terms in the actual language that raised a red flag. This morning I spent some time looking for any analysis in the media that shared my suspicions, and found it (of course, why did I not start there) at Deadspin: http://deadspin.com/so-whats-actually-new-about-the-nfls-new-domestic-viole-1628098179. Here are some of the main points:

1. While it sounds like this new policy means a first domestic violence offense will result in a mandatory 6 game suspension, that is a (no doubt intended) misunderstanding. The suspension will be determined by "mitigating factors". This of course was the first red flag term that got my attention, since it was the phrase that got Stephen A suspended for a week. It is also what Goodell used to justify his 2 week suspension for Rice. Included among these mitigating factors was the fact that the legal system decided not to convict Rice of a crime (this it self a willful distortion of what is going on with a Diversion Program), and the victim's change of heart regarding pressing charges, especially her comments at a meeting held with her, Goodell, her now-husband and a few other men. Mitigating factors would still allow the Commissioner to give a 1 or 2 game suspension (the average for all suspensions for domestic violence in the history of the NFL apparently has been 1.5 games - see http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nfl-domestic-violence-policy-suspensions/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email), or, I suppose, 0 games if those factor are super-mitigating. 

2. While it is being widely reported that a second incident will result in a lifetime ban, this is not true. It is an indefinite suspension, from which the player can appeal for reinstatement after a year, a reinstatement which is frequently granted, assuming intervening good behavior.

So, what the new, "stiffer" policy really amounts to is that for a first offense the Commissioner can give a suspension between 1 and 6 games (or longer if circumstances warrant), and at least a one year suspension for a second offense. 

This is, quite literally, no different from the status quo. Goodell already had it within his power (the contract gives him almost absolute power to discipline personal transgressions not related to drug use) to give Rice a 6 game suspension, and chose 2 games specifically because of those mitigating factors. And, if Rice were to beat up his wife a second time, I doubt anyone things he would have gotten less than a one season suspension even without this "new" policy.

I guess the policy does establish a new baseline of 6 games as the de facto punishment for a "standard" incidence of physical assault (whatever that is). This may increase the average penalty going forward from 1.5 games to closer to something like 3 games, once all mitigation is factored in. But what I think this policy is really does is provide Goodell with an ex post facto justification for his decision in the Rice case.

This is a PR document, pure and simple, designed to make the public think the NFL has a new, get tough policy on domestic violence. As Deadpin notes, it seems to have been successful. The question to ask Goodell though is this: If the current policy (which specifically states it is not retroactive) had been in force a month ago, would Rice have received a different penalty? I don't know if anyone will get a chance to ask Goodell that question, or if he would answer it honestly, but the real answer is almost certainly, no.

[PGage]

I have not had a chance to read in depth the reactions to the release of the elevator video of Ray Rice punching his girlfriend, but what I have read has left me confused. What about that video is being cited as new evidence that justifies the NFL and the Ravens so profoundly changing their initial judgements? We knew he had punched her in the elevator, we knew that she was unconscious when the doors open, and that he callously dragged her half way out of the elevator. We knew they were the only two people in the elevator. It has always been certain that he punched her in the face/head and that this led to her losing consciousness. We knew it was vicious and ugly and unjustifiable, no matter how much Roger Godell and Stephen A Smith alluded to hypothetical provocations by the girlfriend. This is what the somewhat antiseptic term "domestic violence" means - a man who is almost always bigger and stronger viciously and violently hitting, punching, kicking a woman.

Of course Rice should have been more seriously punished in the first place (despite the reports, this is no more a real life time ban than the NFL's "new and improved guidelines" call for; if Rice is so inclined, and maintains a clean legal record, he will be able to apply for reinstatement in 2 or 3 years), but nothing that happened this morning changed anything.

Deadspin notes the double talk we have been getting about this from jump street. The NFL spin at first was that if only the public had seen the elevator video, we would understand why they gave Rice such a lenient penalty - implying strongly that the girlfriend had started it and Rice was only defending himself. Now the NFL claims it never saw that video, and now that they have they are shocked, shocked to see that Ray Rice punched his girlfriend into unconsciousness. Bull Shit.

http://deadspin.com/someone-is-lying-about-whether-the-nfl-saw-the-ray-rice-1631901404

[Doug Fields]

I made the exact same argument as you, below, earlier today, wondering what everybody’s seeing in the new video that didn’t just confirm what we were all assuming happened after we saw the first video.  The “best” response anybody could give me was “yeah, but now you actually see the act as it happens, and it gets everybody’s emotions involved!”  Which to me indicates that (due to the new “emotional” component) the new video should *especially* not be used to consider any new/changed punishment.  Not that I’m disputing the need to get the guy out of the game…I would’ve suspended him for the year based  on the first video alone.  I just can’t see what “new evidence” we get with the new release that warrants a change in punishment that wasn’t dished out in the first place.

 

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

.

[David Bruggeman]

As someone who follows sports but only watches baseball with any regularity, there's little about this I find surprising.  I've found both Deadspin and Keith Olbermann quite persuasive in their arguments that various parties (including the relevant prosecutors) appear to have been incompetent or willfully negligent.

If tonight's Conan is any indication, he will have more jokes about the NFL's apparent tolerance of off-the-field violence (including murder).

David

---

From: PGage <pga...@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] More NFL BS: "New" Policy on Domestic Violence Changes Nothing

[PGage]

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 7:04 PM, Doug Fields <do...@flids.net> wrote:

I made the exact same argument as you, below, earlier today, wondering what everybody’s seeing in the new video that didn’t just confirm what we were all assuming happened after we saw the first video.  The “best” response anybody could give me was “yeah, but now you actually see the act as it happens, and it gets everybody’s emotions involved!”  Which to me indicates that (due to the new “emotional” component) the new video should *especially* not be used to consider any new/changed punishment.  Not that I’m disputing the need to get the guy out of the game…I would’ve suspended him for the year based  on the first video alone.  I just can’t see what “new evidence” we get with the new release that warrants a change in punishment that wasn’t dished out in the first place.

I think your are right about the emotional response to actually seeing the violence, and that explains the change in the public reaction, but I don't see how it relates to the rationale for the NFL's response. There is nothing in the NFL rules (even the new ones) that say that a player gets a 2 game suspension if we only hear about him punching his girlfriend in the face, but gets an indefinite suspension if we actually see it.

In its statement today, the NFL said: "We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today."  Aside from doubling down on their tactic of shifting blame to the police (which is another issue) this gives the appearance that there was some new information in the video that justifies a new, more severe punishment. But this of course is simply not true - there is no new information in that video.

I guess a more honest statement would be something like: "We gave Ray Rice the smallest penalty we thought the public would tolerate. We misjudged that, which is why we issues the new guidelines. The video released today made even the punishment under the new guidelines unlikely to find support among the public, so we went with a larger punishment."

And the lesson from the NFL about domestic violence? "Guys, Its not that bad to punch your girlfriend in the face, as long as you make sure not to do it in front of video cameras".

[JW]

> I guess a more honest statement would be something like: "We gave Ray Rice
> the smallest penalty we thought the public would tolerate. We misjudged
> that, which is why we issues the new guidelines. The video released today
> made even the punishment under the new guidelines unlikely to find support
> among the public, so we went with a larger punishment."

The NFL's interest is presenting the best entertainment they can. Suspensions for actions that directly affect the on-field product (e.g. PEDs, dangerous hits) should help that. Suspensions for off-field incidents, however distasteful, are much more about PR. I think you're right about how the league has been surprised at the reaction to their handling of the Rice case, and it will be interesting to see who, if anybody, loses their job as they scramble to get a handle on it.

> And the lesson from the NFL about domestic violence? "Guys, Its not that
> bad to punch your girlfriend in the face, as long as you make sure not to
> do it in front of video cameras".

To whatever extent people in the NFL get themselves into potential legal trouble, the league's first priority (rightly or wrongly) is to keep it quiet. I think every team has someone whose job is to handle these incidents; which may involve giving money and/or tickets to someone who's been harmed to keep them from going public. Any discipline would be equally quiet. If nobody but Ray Rice and his fiancee knew that he punched her, nobody would be a position to do anything about it. If the Ravens found out, they might fine him, and they'd probably put him into some kind of treatment, but they wouldn't go out of their way to let the public know what had happened.

[Joe Hass]

I got wrapped into something yesterday, but if you want to watch a single video from yesterday, Adam Schefter was on SportsCenter yesterday morning when this thing broke. Watch the second video. Schefter, who is considered the gold standard of NFL insider stuff, was furious while talking to Hannah Storm about it. And why was he furious? While he won't say it outright, allow me: he (along with a lot of other reporters) was burned horribly by a source.

http://deadspin.com/adam-schefter-is-fed-up-with-the-nfl-1631937239

Here, fundamentally, is what makes this video so significant. Immediately after the initial suspension was handed down, the implication came from the league (though water carriers like Schefter and Peter King, who effectively admitted to a journalistic felony in his piece yesterday) that there was some sort of mitigating circumstance that the public didn't know, and the head tilting was that mitigating circumstance happened in the elevator, in video that was not public. It clearly didn't work, but that was how it went down. Now we see the elevator tape, and there is no mitigating circumstance: Palmer, at worst, spits on him, and his response was to cold cock her. The NFL proceed to make that "it's the poh-lease's fault" statement, which again holds no water.

Now we know someone's lying, but the question becomes who and when:

* A group of league reporters who have a history of carrying water for the league all got together and concocted one of the most superb concerted cover-ups in journalism history, covering multiple organizations, almost immediately after the news breaks.

* The NFL conducted such a shitty investigation that they never even tried to obtain the tape in question, but then lied to the reporters to implicate they *had* seen the tape and there was something there.

* The NFL saw the tape, factored it into the two-game suspension, told reporters that they had seen something, and now that it's been released, is lying when they said they never saw it with a bunch of weasel words, thereby hanging a bunch of reporters out to dry.

If you believe the first option, you have no knowledge of how reporting works within pro sports (especially the NFL) or you regularly reply to the emails sent to you about a large lottery winnings that they need you to wire them $800 to help claim, to which they'll pay you back $20,000.

The question becomes the classic "crime or cover-up?" Because here's where things get interesting: if it's second option, then yeah, at this point the NFL looks even more pathetic than they already are, become even bigger hypocrites, and at this point the biggest problem is just a public relations nightmare becoming worse. If it's the third option, Ray Rice suddenly has a card available, because as Schefter notes, the CBA effectively has a "Double Jeopardy" clause in it. For the NFL to add to the punishment already handed out could violate the CBA and Rice (if he chooses to do so) could force the NFL to go to court to answer some questions they *really* don't want to answer right now.

The NFL has turned into a nine-year-old who spins larger-and-larger whoppers until the whole thing collapses, and then *keeps* telling the lies.

Though I'll note something interesting: around 4:30 PM CT yesterday, I went on Facebook and checked the trending stories. There were two NFL items, and neither were about Ray Rice. The level of media shitstorm has more to do with the fact that they believe they were lied to than the level of fury from the fans, who predictably disregarded this like every other NFL sin, because, hey, there's football on the box again! I wrote in a Facebook post yesterday that if this video does anything, this is truly a put-up-or-shut-up moment for NFL fans. If you support the sport (regardless of the color jersey you root for), you're endorsing the behavior of these assholes. Do you have a problem with this or don't you? And if you do, are you going to alter your behavior or do you fundamentally not care, because FOOTBALL!

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[PGage]

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 8:37 AM, Joe Hass <hassg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I got wrapped into something yesterday, but if you want to watch a single video from yesterday, Adam Schefter was on SportsCenter yesterday morning when this thing broke. Watch the second video. Schefter, who is considered the gold standard of NFL insider stuff, was furious while talking to Hannah Storm about it. And why was he furious? While he won't say it outright, allow me: he (along with a lot of other reporters) was burned horribly by a source.

http://deadspin.com/adam-schefter-is-fed-up-with-the-nfl-1631937239

 

(SNIP) I wrote in a Facebook post yesterday that if this video does anything, this is truly a put-up-or-shut-up moment for NFL fans. If you support the sport (regardless of the color jersey you root for), you're endorsing the behavior of these assholes. Do you have a problem with this or don't you? And if you do, are you going to alter your behavior or do you fundamentally not care, because FOOTBALL!

I did watch the Schefter segments last night (to clarify, Deadspin calls him the gold standard of insider hacks who make their living passing on handouts from the NFL) - it will be interesting to see if people like him take a more critical, journalistic stance toward the NFL in the future (Hint: They won't).

In reference to your last note, as someone else said on the list yesterday, the NFL is making it harder and harder for ethical people to remain a fan. At this point I am not ready to go as far as you have here - after all, men who do not play for the NFL beat the shit out of their wives and girlfriends all the time, and I am not aware of any evidence that this is more common among NFL players than the general population (about 1.4 million women are physically assaulted by intimate partners each year in this country; the common perception that there is a link between the Super Bowl and increased domestic violence is a myth). But the NFL consistently engages in the very worst of corporate evil, lying to its customers and exploiting its labor force, maximizing its obscene profits while diluting its product.  

So far I am not watching less football than I was - but I am thinking about it.

 

[Joe Hass]

I can tell you what started me over the edge.

I was a Lions season ticket holder for about six years, would describe my self as a step above a casual fan. So after the 2001 terrorist attacks, I was not surprised that there was heightened security (I went to the first Monday Night game after the attacks with my then-girlfriend/now-wife and her friend, and we were told absolutely nothing bag-like could be brought into the stadium. But the NFL and its teams would announce a season or two later a new security policy: all ticket holders would be required to undergo a physical pat down before entering the facility. This, I thought, was insane. You're imposing a higher standard of security than at any venue I had ever heard of, short of perhaps correctional facilities. And I fundamentally had a problem with this. So I started selling my season tickets and refused to go to the games. When the resale value of the tickets dropped below face a couple years later, I dropped the season tickets, and just drifted away from the sport. And as they just kept going, doing dumber and dumber things, I cared less and less. The last time I sat down and watched a game in its entirety was Super Bowl 45 (and that was because my wife is a Packers fan). The sports is insignificant to me now, my awareness only because my wife is a Packers season ticket holder.

I was done with the league long before Ray Rice. But I think this incident is effectively the breaking point of 10 years of behavior that could only be described as psychopathic. The two-game suspension was the Mancini/Kim fight. The video release is the Holmes/Cobb fight.

--

[Bob Jersey]

Joe Hass, in part, on the Adam Schefter gripes monitored on Deadspin:

Here, fundamentally, is what makes this video so significant. Immediately after the initial suspension was handed down, the implication came from the league (though water carriers like Schefter and Peter King, who effectively admitted to a journalistic felony in his piece yesterday) that there was some sort of mitigating circumstance that the public didn't know, and the head tilting was that mitigating circumstance happened in the elevator, in video that was not public. It clearly didn't work, but that was how it went down. Now we see the elevator tape, and there is no mitigating circumstance: Palmer, at worst, spits on him, and his response was to cold cock her. The NFL proceed to make that "it's the poh-lease's fault" statement, which again holds no water.

Deadspin (link): The NJ state police are pieved that the League, at least on the public level, confused them with the local Atlantic City cops. Another obvious question arises: did the league investigators have any clues as to which department to approach?

B

[PGage]

Well, I think it is clear the NFL claims that "we asked the police and they didn't give the video to us" is a small fig leaf constructed of bull shit, so I don't think anyone there ever really got to the point of really thinking about the different jurisdictions involved. Ray Rice's lawyer has stated that he had a copy of the video, and would have provided it to the NFL if they had ever asked.

To add to the question of whether it is ethical to keep watching NFL games on TV, secular prophet Keith Olbermann made a convincing case against last night. I link to Deadspin's page that has the youtube video, because they also provide a verbatim transcript (http://deadspin.com/keith-olbermann-on-roger-goodell-an-enabler-of-men-wh-1632150757). Here is a relevant snippet:

"Mr. Goodell's ineptitude has not merely rendered this football season meaningless and irrelevant by contrast, it has not only reduced supporting or watching football to a distasteful, even a disrespectful act, but most importantly it has comforted the violent and afflicted the victim. (SNIP)

And lastly, I accuse us, all of us, executives, players, fans, reporters, of failing to draw a line in the sand when one was needed most. Any games played by Baltimore without its executives and the Commissioner having been dismissed, and without Ray Rice Being permanently banned by the National football League, must be fully boycotted by all of us. If not, we become accessories After the fact." 

[Bob Jersey]

Kilmeade and Doocy will have to regret the error of particular comments about the Rice case on F&F... Aypee via TVNewsCheck

B

[Joe Hass]

Kilmeade and Doocy will have to regret their very existence at this point to even try to break even.

[Mark Jeffries]

And receives a comment from a moron calling the AP "Administration Propaganda" and bringing up Al Sharpton.  I don't admire Sharpton, but he is infinitely more intelligent than Douchebag or the alleged "Sports Guy."

And this is why I refused to set foot in the lobby of my motel in Wichita until they switched the TV from FNC to the Weather Channel after I checked in--and why I walked back out of a restaurant in Blackwell, OK Sunday morning the second I saw the overfamiliar FNC lower third design on the TV set.

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 3:17 PM, Bob Jersey <bob.in...@juno.com> wrote:

Kilmeade and Doocy will have to regret the error of particular comments about the Rice case on F&F... Aypee via TVNewsCheck

B

[PGage]

FWIW, I now have what I think is a more clear theory as to why the video made a difference to the NFL in terms of Rice's penalty. Nothing new here, just that things have come together for me better. This is long and will be of no interest to most I suppose, but I post it here for the record in any case. I am not labeling it off-topic, because I think this whole affair is intimately intertwined with television and its impact on our culture.

As we discussed on this thread yesterday, NFL "reporters" (scare quotes needed because often these guys are little more than stooges for the league, and have about the same relationship to the NFL that many Fox News on air employees have to the Republican Party) are beginning to show signs of a backbone, calling bull shit more or less on the NFL's denials that they ever saw the elevator video. Deadspin has a nice summary of that here: 

http://deadspin.com/espners-are-pissed-at-the-nfl-over-its-ray-rice-video-c-1632424069

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was interviewed by Norah O'Donnell, and portions aired on the CBS Evening News yesterday - see here:

http://deadspin.com/roger-goodell-no-one-in-the-nfl-viewed-ray-rice-tape-1632715561?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email

It is quite possible that Goodell is incorrect when he says nobody at the NFL saw the video (and I don't rule out the possibility that he is straight out lying). The NFL "Insiders" reported months ago not only that their sources told them that the NFL had seen the video, but were able to report from their sources (very accurately we now know for a fact) what was depicted in the elevator video. One of these Insider reporters has now gone so far as to identify her source as a "league source" - which has always been implied by all of these people, but as far as I know this is the first explicit attribution. So we now know beyond doubt that the league has known what was in that elevator video for months.

If we want to assume that Goodell is not technically lying, then I think this is probably what happened:

As we know, Goodell and other league officials met (horrifically and outrageously) with Ray Rice, his lawyer, and Janay Rice (the victim). At this meeting Ray was very apologetic, but also indicated that what was not apparent from the parking garage video is that Janay had provoked and started the violence with her words, and by spitting at him and (I think some reports include this) slapping him. What apparently was definitive for Goodell is that Janay, at this meeting, confirmed and repeated everything that Ray said. All the powerful men in that room concluded that Ray was being unfairly depicted as a bad guy, that he was just defending himself, maybe got a little carried away, and the injury that led to her loss of consciousness was more of an unfortunate accident than a physical assault. The NFL did make pro forma requests for the elevator videotape, but at the top level did not really push for it very hard (evidenced by all the keystone kops absurdity we are seeing in their responses about this - see Olbermann on this from yesterday). However it seems likely that somewhat lower level league officials did either see the elevator video themselves, or (and I think this is most likely) had that video described to them by someone who did see it. This person represented to the higher ups that the elevator video was consistent with the story the Rices had told, and then, to bolster the league when giving background to the "Insiders", this league source seems to have exaggerated the truth (otherwise known as lied) by telling them they had actually seen the video, when probably they had just had it described to them.

The elevator video does seem to show that Janay spit at Ray, and maybe slapped or tried to slap him. However it is painfully clear when actually watching the videotape that Ray's response can not in any way be characterized as self-defense, nor her injury as an accident. He hits her twice, once a full roundhouse punch to the jaw. Maybe it was the rail her head hit with the great force of his punch that led directly to her loss of consciousness, but it also looks like the force of the punch itself was fully capable of rendering her unconscious alone. When Goodell and associates at the league, and the Ravens (who had been told the same story by Ray and Janay) saw this video, they felt lied to because the Rice's generic description of what happened inside the elevator, while not technically incorrect, left out so many important details that it was essentially dishonest. This last is important because it probably provides the justification for what otherwise seems like an over-reaction following the initial under-reaction. Rice's indefinite suspension is in excess of what the brand new policy on Domestic Abuse that Goodell is so proud of would seem to call for (6 games). While the league has not clarified this, Dan Patrick and others (at least yesterday, I don't know what they are saying today) have speculated that the larger suspension is based not on the domestic violence seen in the video, but the evidence it provides that Rice lied to the NFL about the incident earlier.

Aside from the fact that even taking the Rices' at their word the behavior called for a more serious response, what is lost on Goodell and a big part of the NFL establishment is that the main problem here is not that Ray and Janay lied (or misrepresented) the incident to them, but that they were stupid and callous enough to take them at their word (and, even worse, to interview her with him and his lawyer present, without insisting on a separate interview, with her own lawyer looking after just her interests, and perhaps some kind of domestic violence expert or advocate present). The social welfare, mental health and criminal justice communities learned decades ago how tragic these kinds of mistakes are; I remember a case from as recently as the late 1980s that I was involved in after the fact when a wife, questioned in her husband's presence by the police, swore up and down very convincingly that he had not ever hurt her, and was then killed by him that night in what a post-mortem proved was only the last in a long series of brutal physical attacks. If the NFL had talked with any expert in this field for even 2 minutes they would have been told specifically not to interview the Rices together. And by experts here I do not just mean touchy-feely social worker types, but also anyone work works for any law enforcement agency that has regular contact with domestic incidents. 

This is why this is more than just a game of "Gotcha" with the NFL (though that game has its own merits). It is essential that the NFL and the other major sports organizations, professional, amateur and college, learn from this and never again make this mistake (though again, this deep into the 21st century, it is inexcusable that they needed this incident to learn a lesson that has been well known for decades). I am prepared to assume that even as great an asshole as Roger Goodell would not have whitewashed Ray Rice if he realized what actually happened in that elevator. His failure, which borders on criminal and is clearly immoral, was the deference he showed to the accused assaulter, and his inability to imagine the most obvious scenario from knowing the facts that one of his professional football players had to drag his unconscious girlfriend out of an elevator, and admitted that he struck her, and that this led to her injury. While it is certainly possible to imagine some Rube Goldberg sequence in which an innocent act by Ray led to Janay lying unconscious on the elevator floor, only a monster presumes that scenario as truth and shows no real interest in investigating it.

[Joe Hass]

I'll add one additional missing piece:

It would not surprise me if everyone employed by the NFL who saw (or knew what was on) that tape was a member of NFL Security, since fundamentally it's all in the police report. I believe that information had to have gotten to Roger Goodell. I'll bet you dollars for doughnuts that it was communicated to him in written form (which squares the "I never saw the video!" circle). But if you go back to the attendees at that meeting, no one from NFL Security was represented. Any one of them would *have* to know what was happening was spectacularly wrong (as PG notes, it's not like the data on handling situations like this is at all new, and you don't work for pro sports security without knowing a whole lot about this field).

But Roger Goodell decided to be Roger Goodell. He got his data from the internal investigation, he was going to handle this, and he was going to play judge and jury. That's how he's behaved for years. And being a lawyer, he decided to have a lawyer by his side: a nice, corporate lawyer who probably hasn't seen the inside of a criminal court room in decades.

--

[Joe Hass]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 1:06 PM, Joe Hass <hassg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'll add one additional missing piece:

It would not surprise me if everyone employed by the NFL who saw (or knew what was on) that tape was a member of NFL Security, since fundamentally it's all in the police report. I believe that information had to have gotten to Roger Goodell. I'll bet you dollars for doughnuts that it was communicated to him in written form (which squares the "I never saw the video!" circle). But if you go back to the attendees at that meeting, no one from NFL Security was represented. Any one of them would *have* to know what was happening was spectacularly wrong (as PG notes, it's not like the data on handling situations like this is at all new, and you don't work for pro sports security without knowing a whole lot about this field).

And now AP is reporting "an NFL executive" at 345 Park Avenue had the video in April, which fits this scenario (Goodell never saw it, but at least had access to the contents of it):

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBN_RICE_VIDEO?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-10-16-51-00 

[PGage]

A subject header of "More NFL BS" I now realize is so elastic as to invite infinite contributions. I hesitate to continue piling on, but add here for the record a nice summary of the BS inherent in the announcement last night of former FBI Director Robert Mueller to conduct an "independent" investigation of the NFL's handling of Ray Rice's violent behavior.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/09/11/how-independent-will-robert-mueller-be/

Muller is a senior partner at WilmerHale, the law firm that handled the most recent multi-billion dollar contract between the NFL and DirecTV, has represented Dan Snyder, the owner of the NFL team in Washington DC, and from which several attorneys have gone on to high placed jobs in the NFL, including Dick Cass, who worked at WilmerHale for 30 years before assuming his current position as.....wait for it....president of the Baltimore Ravens. and Muller's supposedly independent investigation will be overseen by two of the oldest NFL families - Mara (Giants) and Rooney (Steelers).

Unless they have already decided to hang Goodell out to dry, and wants to show its most die hard supporters that even those sucking at the NFL teat have concluded Goodell must be fired, this is shockingly cynical and disgraceful, even for a corporation with the pockmarked moral culture of the National Football League.

Literally nothing Muller says in any final report that is positive about Goodell or the NFL can be taken seriously. They have guaranteed before it starts that this will be a complete and total waste of time, and merely confirm that assumption that the NFL is a cynical and exploitative organization only concerned with its own profits and covering its own ass - again, unless the owners know they are in real trouble, and are just trying to lay the groundwork for firing Goodell.

[Kevin M.]

In related news Rihanna wants to make it all about her: 

https://twitter.com/rihanna/status/511844041131327488

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[Tom Wolper]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

In related news Rihanna wants to make it all about her: 

https://twitter.com/rihanna/status/511844041131327488

That will be hard on all the people who watch the NFL for the songs.

[John Edwards]

The sooner you realize that everything is about Rihanna, the happier you'll be....

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
John Edwards
"You can insure against the weather, but you can't insure against incompetence, can you?" - Phil Tufnell

[Bob Jersey]

John Edwards, to Kevin and PGage:

The sooner you realize that everything is about Rihanna, the happier you'll be....

Crumbs, she's gotta make up for the crap she took for making Battleship...

B