Hurley: Goodell Holding Brady To Wholly Hypocritical Standard
BOSTON (CBS) -- When you sit down and yell about deflated footballs for an hour with Michael Felger, it gets you thinking. It's only natural.
So after I walked out of the dungeon, dusted myself off and tried to assess what happened on Thursday afternoon, there was one topic that only briefly popped up that I couldn't quite shake.
Before I get there, I should say this, for the umpteenth time: I think a Patriots employee let some air out of the footballs. I don't know this, but I think it. I don't know -- and nobody else knows -- how much Tom Brady knew about the details of doing so. I think, based on the scientific reasonings that easily explain the recorded PSI numbers, that the amount of air removed from the footballs was so negligible, so insignificant that it makes the entire fiasco all the more preposterous.
But I also know that none of that was proven and that much too much of this nationwide debate has focused on people's personal conspiracy theories. And the issuance of historic penalties and punishment by commissioner Roger Goodell is wildly unreasonable.
OK. Record straight. Now, on to the point.
Right now, in late July, Tom Brady is essentially being severely punished by Roger Goodell for acting like Roger Goodell.
Last summer, Roger Goodell lied. A US District judge has proven this. Roger Goodell, when facing criticism for the way he did his job, when facing the risk of potentially losing his job, started to squirm. He was in a bad position, one from which he could not wriggle himself free, and so he lied. He deceived. He hid facts. He was anything but truthful.
This is all documented. It's a matter of public record.
And what did Roger do to hold himself accountable for the lies he was proven to have told? He paid Robert Mueller millions of dollars to execute a report that cleared the NFL of any wrongdoing. Forget about what the judge said -- the NFL was going to exonerate itself. And it did.
But guess who never had to turn over his private cell phone during that investigation. Why, that would be one Mr. Roger Goodell.
If he wasn't willing to voluntarily turn over his private cell phone, then he was obviously hiding some incriminating evidence. That's how this thing works, right?
From Mueller's report in January:
"We imaged more than 90 League computers and mobile devices."
"We searched League computers and mobile devices for the in-elevator video."
"To determine whether the in-elevator video was viewed on a League computer or mobile device prior to its public dissemination, we collected and forensically analyzed League-owned computer s and mobile devices."
The first mention of this work did not specify that it was Goodell's work phone rather than his personal phone.
"We retained a digital forensic company to collect and image, and then search, the computers and mobile phones of Goodell, [Jeffrey] Miller, and other senior executives of the League," the report stated, rather deceptively.
Yet, when Goodell spoke at the owners' meetings in San Francisco in May, he trumpeted his own integrity because he was willing to give up his phone.
"I think we were very clear in the letter, in Troy [Vincent's letter of discipline to Tom Brady], that noncooperation was a factor in the discipline, absolutely," Goodell said on May 20. "You point out in Director Mueller's investigation there was full cooperation, he had access to every text, every email, every bit of communication that I had and that everyone in our office had and there were no restrictions on that whatsoever. So, we do expect to have that in investigations. That's an important part of it and when there isn't full cooperation, that is certainly part of the discipline."
The man who never willingly turned over his personal cell phone declared this with a straight face. And then, two months later, he doubled down by releasing a 20-page document that sought to eviscerate Brady's credibility for not immediately turning over his own personal cell phone.
In both cases, nobody had any right to see anybody's personal cell phone. Mueller didn't have a right to Goodell's (though that "investigation" didn't really need to have any "rules"), and Ted Wells didn't have a right to Brady's. In fact, Wells said as much himself.
"And I want to be crystal clear," Wells said on May 12. "I told Mr. Brady and his agents, I was willing not to take possession of the phone. I said, 'I don't want to see any private information.' I said, 'Keep the phone. You and the agent, Mr. [Don] Yee, you can look at the phone. You give me documents that are responsive to this investigation and I will take your word that you have given me what's responsive.' And they still refused."
And yet, rather than focus on the actual offense, the NFL leaked the "destroyed" phone information and Goodell repeated it numerous times throughout the 20-page ruling. The fact that Brady and his representatives, upon learning that a four-game suspension turned out to be the punishment for this fabricated requirement, were willing to eventually turn over those exact communications did not matter much to Goodell.
Just a few short months ago, the country was out for the blood of a prominent NFL figure. They wanted him to be publicly shamed and exposed for suffering from a lack of integrity.
That person managed to keep his cell phone private and eventually receive no discipline whatsoever. This time around, the person in the crosshairs is receiving unprecedented punishment.
What Goodell is doing now is not only holding Brady to an unprecedented and unfair standard but also a standard by which the commissioner himself was not bound just seven months ago.
In a league that loves to tout its own integrity, it is NFL hypocrisy at its finest.
In a way, it's sort of the NFL's version of succumbing to the way of the modern media culture. It's all about hits, clicks, headlines, sizzle. More than ever, businesses are guided by page views, not substance. Certainly, it's not integrity.
So a website runs a story that gets proven to be completely false? Oh well -- delete it after you already got the page views.
So the NFL dedicated unfathomable levels of time money focus energy on a previously ignored issue. Who cares -- the NFL has dominated the news cycle for the entire offseason -- throughout the NBA and NHL playoffs and throughout MLB's regular season -- and guaranteed itself record TV ratings for the season opener. (It also keeps domestic violence, the shameful Hall of Fame silencing of Junior Seau's family, officiating failures, etc. out of the news.) No matter how the New York court rules, the league stands to benefit.
The league wins no matter what.
It makes you wonder, what would Goodell have done if he were NHL commissioner and Wayne Gretzky got caught with an illegal curve? Two-minute minor ... or a 20-game suspension?
What if he were MLB commissioner when George Brett famously had pine tar too far up his baseball bat? In real life, AL president Lee MacPhail actually re-awarded Brett his home run. If Goodell were in charge, Brett would be sitting for 40 games.
That's what's making this situation so much more unbearable from a common sense standpoint. The commissioner's insistence on applying a prison sentence for jaywalking -- and doing so based on incomplete evidence -- is inexcusable.
Goodell has taken much criticism for being "judge, jury and executioner" all too often. But in this case on that parallel, Goodell himself was also the defendant and the prosecutor. And -- surprise of all surprises -- he managed to get off without so much as a sentence for community service.
Roger Goodell is in a position to lead. Instead, he's perpetually sticking up his dukes and fashioning a whip. If only, for once, he had to answer to somebody like himself. Perhaps then he'd see what he's doing.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.