Hurley: 'Integrity Of The Game' Is The Hill Roger Goodell Will Die On
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It's a fascinating thing, really, listening to the commissioner of the National Football League when he speaks. You do it enough, and you're certain to be driven to the brink of insanity.
It's not that he lies and offers misdirection whenever possible; any face of any multi-billion dollar corporation is going to operate on the fringes of the truth. It's that you watch him and you really can't tell whether he knows what he's doing or whether he's dense enough to actually believe the words coming out of his mouth.
He's either got the world's greatest poker face or he's even more self-absorbed than we all thought possible.
The latest installment of Goodell's theatrics took place at a golf course in Western New York, where the commissioner addressed the media at Jim Kelly's golf tournament. And because the "DeflateGate" saga has grown into one of the most fascinating train wrecks in sports history, the gathered reporters felt compelled to ask about the situation, which has carried on for more than 500 days.
Goodell's answers were, as always, perplexing.
"Well, the first thing I'd say is that the CBA is very clear," Goodell stated in his typically blank tone. "The [Second Circuit] Court of Appeals made that clear, that that's exactly what was negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement. That's the authority that the commissioner has been granted."
And we're off.
The CBA is not very clear. The ambiguity of the CBA -- notably Article 46 -- has led to two high-ranking judges interpreting its message one way and two high-ranking judges interpreting it another way. Yes, two Second Circuit judges ruled definitively that Goodell essentially has unchecked, sweeping power. But a district judge and the chief judge of the Second Circuit have ruled that Goodell overstepped his authority. To speak in such black-and-white terms brings us back to the victory lap days, when Goodell felt as empowered as he ever had in his tenure as commissioner. The idea of Goodell feeling above the law -- and being heartened in that feeling, thanks to two judges -- should be a frightening thought for NFL players.
There's also this minor issue: Fundamental fairness must still be present in any and all arbitration cases. And it's been laid out in great detail -- including by a member of the NFL Management Council -- that fairness played no role in any of the proceedings regarding Goodell and Tom Brady. That teeny-tiny oversight by the commissioner could very well come back to bite him in a most embarrassing way. But at the moment, he appears either blissfully unaware or just overly confident.
Goodell continued.
"The reality is that our rules apply to everybody," the commissioner deadpanned, apparently serious. "They apply to every player, every team, and that's something that we're gonna work hard to maintain and not hand off to somebody else."
The rules, as always, apply to everybody except Roger himself and Roger's direct employees. So Dean Blandino and Troy Vincent never could really get their story straight about what happened, who knew what and when they knew it on the night of the AFC Championship Game? Not a problem. So Mike Kensil apparently displayed a bloodlust on the field during that game? Not a problem. So somebody from the NFL front office leaked completely false information to put the Patriots on their heels and force the team to open a door to a shady "investigation" which was wrongly labeled as "independent"? Again, no issue.
Oh, and when an NFL higher-up steadfastly refuses to correct the public record after information that has become known to be false continues to drive the national narrative? No issue there.
The rules apply to everyone, except the people making them and enforcing them. This is the story of Goodell's NFL.
Goodell was asked directly if the 500-plus-day soap opera is embarrassing for him.
"The legal system is deliberate, if you want to put it that way," Goodell said. "And it's unfortunate, because it does impact on our game. But we don't encourage that obviously, and we'd like to get this resolved."
Unfortunate?
Getting an illness is unfortunate. Getting rear-ended on your way home from work is unfortunate. Having a 10-year storm roll through town on the day of your wedding is unfortunate.
But completely botching one's job responsibilities? Turning what was at worst a minor offense into a federal crime? Issuing a conviction when the evidence proved to be too weak for such a conclusion? Doubling down in an appeals process by invoking more rules that have never been applied on any player in the history of football? Changing the story on PSI testing when science proved your case to be bankrupt?
None of that is unfortunate. It's all deliberate. It all came as the result of decisions made by Goodell himself.
Goodell speaks of this matter as if it was out of his hands, as if it's something that happened on its own, when in reality he is the sole driver of "DeflateGate" ever existing. His general incompetence, his leftover public shame from his botching of the Ray Rice situation, and his eagerness to appease owners who hate losing (at least 30 of them lose every year) drove him to thump his chest and use potentially deflated footballs to prop himself up. In the process, he's created a historical mess for his league.
Yet, as tends to be his way, Goodell absolves himself of any and all blame. The entire event is merely "unfortunate."
He can't really believe that. Or can he? It's getting really hard to tell.
And of course, a Goodell public appearance wouldn't be complete without some trumpeting of his shining integrity.
"It's unfortunate. If we can find a better system, we'd said that since we structured our collective bargaining agreement. If there's a better system, let's do it. But when it comes to the integrity of the game, that's a responsibility of the commissioner," Goodell stated proudly. "And we're not gonna hand that integrity of the game off to somebody who doesn't have any involvement in the game. That's for somebody that understands what's important in making sure we maintain that, maintain the competitiveness of our game."
Now we've got problems.
If Goodell wants to cite the CBA and the Second Circuit's decision as evidence of his power, then he actually does have that right. He currently holds the upper hand in that debate.
But integrity? Oh no, Roger. That ship sailed long ago.
We need not rehash and reexamine every bit of evidence from the "DeflateGate" timeline to point out the inconsistencies in the NFL's findings, claims and accusations. But there is no debate that similar instances on record -- the Chargers using towels covered in stickum, the Vikings and Panthers warming footballs in front of heaters on the sideline -- resulted in just a fine (in the Chargers case) and a warning (in the Vikings/Panthers case). Maintaining "the competitiveness" of the game mattered little back then, but not now.
Yet most egregious is Goodell's insinuation that he and only he is capable of serving the role as the world's foremost leader in integrity. In fact, he lied about the scope of the investigation and shoehorned himself into an arbitrator's role for which he has zero qualifications. Then, after delaying the announcement of his ruling until a time that put more pressure on Brady to simply accept defeat and accept the punishment, Goodell wrote an out-and-out lie to make Brady seem less credible as a witness.
Since then, he's been called out by one of the most respected names in the legal field for showing no regard for the "basic hallmarks of due process." In an amicus brief filed to the Second Circuit, Kenneth Feinberg called Goodell a "non-neutral arbitrator" whose "actions were simply beyond the bounds" of fair arbitration proceedings. Feinberg criticized Goodell for violating all the principles of arbitration and for reshaping the CBA, and he noted that "unfair rulings and bias" such as Goodell's are "intolerable."
"This dynamic made it impossible for Brady to obtain fair process," Feinberg, an expert with decades' worth of experience as one of the most high-profile arbitrators in the country, wrote. "The award sent a clear signal to the public about arbitration: procedural due process can be ignored. In so doing, he undercut the role of arbitration as a viable and effective alternative to protracted litigation."
Yet, in the mind of Goodell, he is the beacon of all that is just in this unfair world. Never mind the fact that multiple federal judges have outed him for deceptive practices which have at times admitted to outright lying under oath. Never mind the transcript of Brady's appeal hearing, which only became public knowledge thanks to Judge Richard Berman's order, which revealed Goodell as a non-legal mind who should never be in charge of running any type of arbitration proceeding. And never mind that Goodell's own bosses have at least privately lost faith in his abilities to properly lead.
Never mind all of it. Despite years of evidence proving him incapable of upholding it, Goodell is not going to hand off his power to maintain the integrity of the game.
Surely, Goodell has to know that every time he utters the word "integrity," the world laughs at him.
Right?
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.