Roger Goodell Can't Win a Court Case
Earlier today Judge Richard Berman handed down his decision in regards to the case of Tom Brady vs. NFL and the deflation of footballs. In a move that was surprising to some Berman ruled in favor of Brady and the NFLPA, nullifying the four-game suspension, effective immediately.
The NFL will appeal the decision but Brady is still able to play in week one next Thursday night on CBS.
In a week from today the New England Patriots will take on the Pittsburgh Steelers in one of the most anticipated opening games ever. The amount of adrenaline and rage Brady will have will be indescribable. Whatever motivation he feels on a normal game day will be ratcheted up by a thousand come Thursday night.
At this point Brady may throw for ten touchdowns in the first half, go over to the new ball boy just to mess with Roger Goodell and throw a double middle finger to Goodell every time a la the late Bud Allen.
Ah, Roger Goodell. I'm starting to feel bad for him at this point. He's a mix of Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket and Wolverine. The man keeps on making mistake after mistake at his job but nothing ever fazes him and he seemingly gets more and more powerful. You can't kill him, even if a Boston area host seemingly wants to. Honestly, how many more shots can he take before he isn't in charge anymore? Sure, the moment that made the nation aware of Goodell's poor management style was Ray Rice but if you look at some of the people who talked about Goodell's missteps before that (Hello, Bill Simmons and Keith Olbermann) then the first cut came during the scandal regarding bounties with the New Orleans Saints. Then there was the Ray Rice incident followed by the Adrian Peterson dilemma and now we're dealing with the Tom Brady blunder.
If you remember in 2012 the NFL decided to punish eight people including the head coach, GM and four prominent players of the New Orleans Saints because the NFL decided that a "bounty" was sent down from the defensive coordinator and it was something that couldn't continue in the NFL. If you take a look back at that then you'll see that anybody who decided to take on Goodell in court (Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith, Anthony Hargrove and Scott Fujita had their suspensions overturned and were allowed to play immediately.
That was embarrassing but we kept it moving.
Then, in 2014, everybody was made aware of Ray Rice. In July of 2014 Rice was suspended for two games because of the accusation of domestic violence. People were mad that the suspension was so short but, who knows, maybe it didn't happen the way we all thought. Then the second video was released and all hell broke loose. More specifically, the world was made aware of the video of Rice punching his then fiancé Janay Rice (formerly Palmer) in an elevator. The world was mad and wanted someone to pay. Double jeopardy be damned, we wanted blood. Rice is a monster and needs to pay. Goodell happily obliged and Goodell updated his suspension and suspended him indefinitely.
As heinous as the Rice video was the NFLPA took the NFL to court arguing that the NFL can't punish someone for the same crime twice. The courts agreed and took away the indefinite suspension.
Then, not too long after the Ray Rice incident there was the Adrian Peterson conversation that involved the always volatile conversation about spanking your kid. The NFL was in another bind considering this came months after the Rice fiasco.
So what did the NFL do? The NFL suspended Peterson indefinitely and found a list called the Commissioner Exempt List. What does that list mean? Basically it's a list that allows the NFL to suspend a player for as long as they want and nobody can say anything about it because the players still get paid. Basically the NFL threw Peterson, Rice and Greg Hardy's case (Also Domestic Violence) and did the equivalent of throwing something in a drawer so they don't have to see or hear it anymore.
Adrian Peterson took the NFLPA with him to court to protest the ruling and viola the suspension was overturned. Peterson was later reinstated and Goodell lost again. That leads us to the deflating footballs case that the NFL lost (at least temporarily) today.
It's been said a million times but Goodell literally makes the rules up as he goes along and, at this point, I don't know how you can dispute it. Even South Park took shots at Goodell.
The New Orleans Saints, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Tom Brady have all taken shots at the king and none of them have missed.
So, now the NFL has to deal with another PR fire. It's another decision by their commissioner that the courts have deemed unfair. Sure, the league is going to appeal the decision but the damage is already done. The NFL has lost its last five court cases and people are starting to think that they can do a better job than Goodell at this point. Whether they can or can't the fact that there's this much bile around Goodell is bad.
It's another loss in both the court of law and the court of public opinion. That doesn't even bring into account the new Will Smith movie that tackled (pun intended) the very real dilemma of how safe the NFL is if it could lead to CTE problems later in life.
It's embarrassing but don't get it twisted, it's by no means something that will get Goodell fired, at least right now. He's the NFL's version of a human shield. He takes the punishment so the NFL owners don't. Unless we hear a story about Goodell hitting his wife he's staying. Maybe his power will lessen and maybe he continues to look foolish but as long as we continue to talk about Goodell's idiocies and not the things regarding the owner of the Colts or the transgressions of the owner of the Cowboys then Goodell will stay in power.
Unless the owners (outside of Robert Kraft) start publicly shaming Goodell he has no real motivation to relinquish his power. The time this will become a thing again (outside of the next time he issues a punishment) will be the next time he and the NFLPA negotiate the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Until then we now dine on the shame and humiliation of the NFL and Goodell. When Goodell makes an appearance for the opener next week the crowd's reaction should be fantastic. Good luck Roger, at least you're getting paid to be the NFL's human piñata.