Hurley: Roger Goodell will have an even easier time saying nothing at his Super Bowl press conference this year

BOSTON -- Every year, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell takes the stage at the city hosting the Super Bowl to speak on the state of the league. There is always pomp, there is always circumstance, but there's rarely a substantive answer coming out of Goodell's mouth.

This year, the commissioner will have an even easier time saying nothing at his annual "press conference."

Instead of holding the "press conference" later in the week, when more media members have arrived in the host city for Super Bowl coverage, Goodell is holding this year's "press conference" on Monday in Las Vegas. And taking it a step further, the league has decided to make it an invite-only affair, meaning regular old media members are not allowed to attend and ask Goodell questions about the NFL.

(Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio reported this change a few days ago, noting that he was not invited to the "press conference.")

The net effect of this change will be minimal. As already stated, Goodell is a master of speaking words while not actually saying anything. A 45-second answer to a pointed question can occasionally make a spectator believe an answer has been given; a careful examination of those words after the fact often shows that no such event occurred.

Despite that being the case, Goodell is seemingly opening himself up to criticism for dodging questions that he'd otherwise be facing this week if he held his "press conference" later in the week and didn't restrict who was allowed to participate.

"I think the whole thing is a bad look for Goodell. Very bad," wrote Peter King, a veteran reporter who's not normally quick to criticize the commissioner. "Either he's got thinner skin than he likes people to think he has, or he's afraid of answering tough questions about how far the league's gotten into bed with sports betting interest after saying for years legalized sports gambling would be a pox on the NFL."

"Roger Goodell's annual exercise in performative transparency has always been part press conference, part joke. The NFL commissioner has taken it to a new low this year, however, moving the event up to Monday afternoon and making it invite-only, alterations that show just how much he wants to avoid facing difficult questions," wrote The Boston Globe's Tara Sullivan.

"Is our nation's most famous spokesperson suddenly afraid to tackle tough media questions during Super Bowl week? We don't know this definitively, but it certainly appears that way," wrote Awful Announcing's Michael Grant.

Of course, calling Goodell's annual dog-and-pony show a "press conference" has always been disingenuous. It's more of a spectacle than anything else, with Goodell pushing forward league directives while sprinkling in some friendly questions from "Play 60" kids who ask him about his workout routine. Occasionally, questions about, say, suspect officiating are thrown at the commissioner. (The furor after the missed pass interference call in New Orleans during the 2018 playoffs comes to mind there.) But Goodell's responses generally lacked the substance necessary to leave anyone feeling informed or satisfied, though, and the "press conference" would just move along to the next topic.

Having attended a handful of these "press conferences," I can report that it might be easier to get the president of the United States on the telephone than it would be to get selected to actually ask a question to Goodell. Once, after raising my hand at the height of DeflateGate hysteria, an NFL representative checked my credential, spoke to an unknown person via lapel microphone, and never came back. It felt like trying to get through the Secret Service ... to ask a football commissioner a question about his league. Another time, a different NFL representative checked my credential and told me there were two people ahead of me, and that he'd be back with a microphone. He never returned. Other times I was ignored entirely. I was far from the only one in that boat.

Still, it was nice to have the idea that the commissioner could face an uncomfortable question or two during an hour-long performance on stage. That illusion has now been eliminated entirely.

It would be difficult to look at this massive change and not see it as a direct response to Jim Trotter asking Goodell about a lack of diversity in NFL Network's leadership positions for two consecutive years. Last year, Trotter quoted James Baldwin while telling Goodell, "I can't believe what you say because I see what you do." Goodell responded in a slightly combative fashion, disagreeing with Trotter's data, and shirking responsibility for the matter.

Trotter's employment with NFL Media was terminated two months later, and he has since sued the NFL for racial discrimination.

That's just one topic that Goodell won't be asked about at his annual "press conference." And at this point, Goodell might be better off to not even bother pretending that this exercise is anything other than a live-action press release. Surely, anyone paying attention this year can see that the facade has now faded completely.