Roger Goodell still a commissioner under siege

[Daily Weasel]

PHOENIX — Roger Goodell said a lot of words Friday at his annual
State of the Game news conference, but few of substance. And
none that will change anyone’s minds.

He is still a commissioner under siege. And it will not be
Goodell’s words that restore confidence in his ability to lead
the NFL through an unprecedented series of challenges. It might,
in fact, already be too late for that.

The Super Bowl on Sunday officially will conclude one of the
worst years any sports league has had to endure. Even this
showcase game for the NFL has been distracted by the latest in a
long line of incidents: Deflate-gate.

In his opening remarks, Goodell called this “a terrific year of
football.” No, it wasn’t. Not when you had the Ray Rice debacle
(along with other cases of domestic violence), the Adrian
Peterson mess, the ongoing debate over concussions and player
safety, and now the kerfuffle over whether the New England
Patriots doctored their footballs in the AFC title game.

This latter case might turn out to be much ado about little. But
even if that’s the judgment, the commissioner’s close
relationship with Patriots owner Robert Kraft (who one unnamed
executive calls the “assistant commissioner,” according to a
damning GQ article on Goodell), raises the issue of a conflict
of interest. And not for the first time.

Goodell’s tenure as commissioner has been dotted with
troublesome cases, from the dogfighting conviction of Michael
Vick to Spygate and Bountygate. (General rule of thumb: If one
commish has three “gates”on his watch, something is amiss.)

Goodell fumbled the Rice case so badly — either lying about
whether the NFL had obtained the elevator video released by TMZ,
or showing a shocking lack of resolve in doing so — that the
firestorm was immense. A bumbling performance in a news
conference designed to clear the air merely did more damage.

Even Friday, one of the questions from a reporter was whether
Goodell expected owners to cut his pay (which is an astounding
$44 million package). Another was even more blunt:

“Many people in America, if they went through the year that
you’ve had, probably would have resigned or been fired. Can you
envision any set of circumstances that would lead you to
resigning or being fired from your job as commissioner?“

Goodell’s response: “No, I can’t. Does that surprise you?”

He continued, “Listen, it has been a tough year. It’s been a
tough year on me personally. It’s been a year of what I would
say is humility and learning. We, obviously as an organization,
have gone through adversity.

“More importantly, it’s been adversity for me. We take that
seriously. It’s an opportunity for us to get better. It’s an
opportunity for us, for our organization, to get better. We’ve
all done a lot of soul-searching, starting with yours truly.”

But Goodell’s credibility is at a low ebb. Though he extolled
the NFL’s progress in the area of domestic violence Friday, I
received an email from the feminist group, UltraViolet, with
this statement from co-founder Nita Chaudhary:

“Goodell has clearly lost touch with America, as the public’s
faith in the NFL is plummeting. The NFL’s leadership vacuum on
the issue of domestic violence continues to hurt the league.
Polling shows women are fed up, a huge problem for a league
currently relying on women for their future growth. The facts
remain: under Goodell’s watch 55 cases of domestic violence went
unanswered. The NFL needs leadership to get out of this mess,
and Goodell is no leader.”

Compounding matters is the fact that NFL players seem to be
losing faith in Goodell. The union is fighting the personal-
conduct policy that was approved by owners. Players wonder why
Goodell talks about player safety but continues to subject them
to games on Thursday and toys with an 18-game season.

Players such as Richard Sherman have been emboldened to speak
out. This week, Sherman predicted the Patriots wouldn’t be
punished and added, “Not as long as Robert Kraft and Roger
Goodell are still taking pictures at their respective homes.
(Goodell) was just at Kraft’s house last week before the AFC
championship. Talk about conflict of interest. As long as that
happens, it won’t affect them at all.”

How does Goodell keep his job? Easy. There’s one part of it he
does brilliantly — figure out ways to increase the NFL revenue
flow. League revenues are at $11 billion and rising, with
Goodell publicly stating a few years ago that his goal is $25
billion in annual revenue by 2027.

So far, the NFL has been remarkably bulletproof. No matter how
ugly the scandal or off-field incident with which the league is
hit, the sport’s popularity is untouched. If anything, it seems
to grow.

But you have to wonder how many blows the league can endure
before that trend is reversed and football starts to lose its
hold on America. Especially with studies showing that more
parents are preventing their kids from playing football because
of injury concerns.

Last year, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicted the NFL
was 10 years from an implosion because of its greed. He said the
insatiable thirst for evermore revenue streams comes with a
backlash.

“I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get
greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on
you,’’ Cuban told a reporter last March. “That’s rule No.?1 of
business.”

I think Cuban’s timetable might be a little too compact. But in
the GQ article, former commissioner Paul Tagliabue voiced a
similar sentiment regarding what the author, Gabriel Sherman,
called “Goodell’s laser focus on profit and his combative stance
toward players.”

Tagliabue told Sherman, “If they see you making decisions only
in economic terms, they start to understand that and question
what you’re all about. There’s a huge intangible value in peace.
There’s a huge intangible value in having allies.”

Right now, Goodell’s prime allies are the 32 owners. For the NFL
to continue to thrive and not just prosper, he needs to win back
the rest of his constituency. In action, not words.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146

or lst...@seattletimes.com.

On Twitter @StoneLarry

http://seattletimes.com/html/larrystone/2025587092_stonecolumn31
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[trotsky]

On 2/1/15 12:28 AM, Daily Weasel wrote:
> PHOENIX — Roger Goodell said a lot of words Friday at his annual
> State of the Game news conference, but few of substance. And
> none that will change anyone’s minds.

Good for Goodell: speaking in the abstract is the easy part.