Hurley: Questions Roger Goodell Needs To Answer
BOSTON (CBS) -- Nary a soul in this country remains unaware of the ongoing saga known as DeflateGate.
Though the specifics require some level of focus to discover, most of America knows the basics: Tom Brady has been suspended after the league deemed him to have broken rules and lied about doing so. Or, more simply put, they know Tom Brady to be a cheater.
Of course, there's much more to the story than that one-sentence digest -- far too much to address right here.
Instead, I merely have a few questions for Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the league who has remained silent amid a perhaps-unprecedented level of negative attention around the country. Goodell is a man who said in January that he makes himself available to the media every single day, and yet ... nothing.
So absent Goodell taking my calls personally, I'm left to leave my questions for him here.
1. Where Have You Been?
A week has passed since a 200-plus page report was released to the public. It centered on an investigation which targeted the team that just won your Super Bowl -- specifically, the Super Bowl MVP, future Hall of Famer and the face of your league.
Five days later your employee, Troy Vincent, decided to suspend Tom Brady for four games -- 25 percent of the season -- after concluding that he played a role in proven cheating. You said that you authorized this action, but that was it.
Your league, in the meanwhile, is getting hit from every angle. The man you paid multiple millions of dollars to run this investigation held a conference call with reporters, in which he came across as a fiery hot ball of rage. One of the most powerful owners in your league is openly questioning your league-sponsored investigation, and the agent of your most prominent player has called into question the integrity of the actual games on the field.
The PSI of footballs has been an issue that's drawn the attention of the league office zero times in the history of football prior to Jan. 18, yet it now leads national newscasts. Most of us just want to know what the heck is going on, exactly.
You'd be a good person to answer that question -- in theory, at least.
So where are you, Roger, and why have you gone silent?
2. Why Did The Wells Report Find No Fault With Any Of Your Employees? And When Will The Officials' Punishments Be Announced?
Combing through the Wells report, one can reasonably deduce that Jim McNally took the bag of game balls into a bathroom and likely took some air out of the footballs. It's likely, if not completely proven. For that assumed action, you have punished Tom Brady with a four-game suspension, and you've taken a first- and fourth-round pick away from the Patriots, whom you also fined a record $1 million. As a result, even those who were originally bloodthirsty to see the Patriots go down in flames have now taken a step back and reasoned that you went too far.
But that's a separate issue from the one at hand, because, Roger, the Wells report details a multitude of your employees proven to have more likely than not done a poor job on a number of occasions.
To wit:
Referee Walt Anderson
He was warned before the game that the Colts had suspicions about the Patriots' deflating footballs, yet he did not record the pregame PSI measurements (therefore voiding all scientific evidence in your report) and he also LOST THE FOOTBALLS for the first time in his 19-year career. When he finally found the footballs, they were on the field, and he said, "OK, let's kick it off." That was after being warned about funny business with footballs. On Wells' conference call, the lawyer said that nobody from the league took the complaint seriously. Walt Anderson figures to be the embodiment of that attitude, and his failure to ensure legal footballs were put into play should result in a serious penalty.
Dean Blandino
The vice president of officiating in your football league lied publicly. It presents a bad image for the league when the man in charge of the officials, aka the arbiters of the game, is telling lies to the public. Have you ever lied to us, Roger?
Bill Leavy's referee crew
Bill Leavy was in charge of the crew which inflated footballs to 16 PSI in the Patriots' Week 7 game against Jets. We know now that you take the PSI of footballs very seriously, and surely, John Jastremski would have had no ulterior motive to lie about the PSI of the footballs in October, long before he or anyone else was ever under investigation for this very serious matter. Leavy, the referee that night, was interviewed by Wells' team, but Wells left out any mention of what came from that interview. So, Roger, when will you announce the suspension for Leavy? He put improper footballs into use in an NFL game, and that just cannot happen. PSI is too important.
Mike Kensil
The vice president of game operations reportedly approached a Patriots employee on the sideline the night of the AFC Championship Game and said, "We weighed the balls. You are in big f------ trouble." That's despite zero understanding of the Ideal Gas Law, and despite any knowledge of the pregame "weight" of the footballs (the fact that Kensil said they "weighed" the balls shows how little he knew about air pressure). Is this the behavior you want from a neutral party in an investigation of this magnitude?
NFL security/Wells team
From the very night of the championship game, this whole process sprung new leaks every day. There were so many leaks. The biggest was the one to ESPN's Chris Mortensen, who falsely reported that 11 of 12 Patriots footballs were 2 PSI under the allowable limit. That leak set off a firestorm. Then there was the leak to ESPN which stated that the investigation was targeting Jim McNally, and then Adam Schefter reported the leak on Scott Miller (the NFL employee who got fired for stealing memorabilia). The week of the Super Bowl, Jay Glazer learned that the investigation was targeting an employee going to the bathroom. NFL Network's Ian Rapoport later reported that man was elderly (he was not). ESPN said Mike Kensil personally checked the PSI levels at halftime, and reporter Kelly Naqi cited four sources familiar with the investigation in her report (and based on how it looked for the Patriots, it's fair to deduce this information did not come from New England personnel). So, Roger, how is it that in the months that Wells spent investigating your little PSI issue, he found no fault from anyone involved on your security team or his own investigation team for leaking this damning information to the media?
You've got a lot more punishment to hand out, Roger. Don't you think?
3. Why Did You Institute Zero Damage Control Before Or After The Super Bowl?
Roger, the "crisis" was a full-blown national storyline for two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, thanks to Mortensen reporting that 11 of the 12 Patriots footballs measured a full 2 PSI under the allowable limit of 12.5. This information, as recorded in your Wells report, is patently false. Just one football measured at 10.5 PSI.
And it was that Mortensen report which transformed Bob Kravitz's curious early-Monday-morning report into the saga known as "DeflateGate."
And as Dan Wetzel brilliantly pointed out, you sat there and ... did nothing. Why, Roger?
Isn't the integrity of your league important to you, Roger? You seem to utter that word reflexively whenever challenged about anything that goes on in the NFL, so if you knew the measurements did not verify that bombshell report, could you not have said so publicly, Roger? I think you could have, but instead you did nothing. Instead, you palled around with Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick and Tom Brady in Phoenix after they won the Super Bowl. You handed them their trophies and congratulated them as champions, while back home you knew that you had hired a man to tear them down at all costs.
Is it because you wanted your league in the news, whatever way possible? Is it because you were able to lead the national news cycle in the traditional dead period that is the bye week between the conference championship games and the teams actually flying out to the Super Bowl location? Now that we're thinking about it ... it sure does seem convenient that your league did not release the findings of the Wells report until after the NFL draft, smack dab in early May, when the NFL typically takes a step out of the national spotlight while the NBA and NHL playoffs take place.
Hmm ...
Roger, was Richard Sherman on the money when he said that your league will take publicity any way it can get it? And is that what you wanted throughout all of this? I can't help but notice your league is getting infinite amounts of free advertising on every cable news network, every sports radio program, every newspaper and just about any other form of media in this country -- and abroad.
This is what you wanted, isn't it, Roger?
4. Can We Read Your Personal Text Messages?
Roger, when Robert Mueller was hired (by you) to determine if you did anything wrong in the handling of Ray Rice's initial punishment, you handed over your work phone. But you did not hand your personal phone over to Mr. Mueller. That's fine -- you should not have to give up your right to basic privacy for the sake of a public relations-fueled "investigation."
But I noticed that Mueller did not assume guilt on your part, and you were not suspended for a quarter of the season. Instead, you made about $40 million to do ... whatever it is you do on a daily basis.
Yet now, because Tom Brady did not hand over his private messages to the man in charge of running yet another PR-fueled "investigation," he has been assumed to be guilty.
That's not very fair, is it, Roger? Especially considering any messages he sent to Jastremski or McNally would have shown up on their phones ... and -- gasp -- lo and behold, you have those messages, don't you?! Yet you're allowing this fallacy to be perpetuated nationally, because it helps play into your heavyhanded punishment, doesn't it, Roger?
So, let's see it. Let's see your private messages. Can we see them all? You've got nothing to hide, do you, Roger?
5. Do You Think We're Stupid?
We have access to Google, Roger. We can, in the matter of about 1 second, search for the history of the scientific firm used by Ted Wells and see very clearly that its history is suspect -- beyond suspect, actually. It's a company that has "proven" that secondhand smoke does not cause cancer, nor does dumping toxic chemicals into the rain forest of Ecuador. It's a company that "proved" that floor mats, and not cars' computer systems, caused Toyotas to rapidly accelerate on their own. It's a company that argued that asbestos does not cause health problems.
Mike Gaulke, executive chairman of Exponent, was quoted on the record as saying this: "Do we tell our clients a lot of what they don't want to hear? Absolutely."
The Los Angeles Times reporter followed up that quote with this: "[Gaulke] said the firm often comes up with results that don't favor clients, although he couldn't provide specific examples."
This is the firm your "independent" investigator chose to come up with "objective" results.
Roger, do you think we're idiots? I know the answer to that question is yes, but I'd like to tell you that some of us went to high school. A few of us even graduated. And most of us know how to read.
Even if the scientific tests run by Exponent were 100 percent on the money (they weren't), the mere optics of your league choosing to go with a company of such ill repute shows just how little your league thinks of our intelligence.
And aside from Exponent, you think we will believe that the man you paid millions of dollars to investigate the Patriots is "independent"? The man who works for the same firm that defended your league in concussion lawsuits? The man who earned a nice payday from you for his Richie Incognito investigation, and earned another one for this DeflateGate investigation, and would very much like to earn at least one more the next time your league concocts some fabricated crisis -- he has no boss in this instance?
Come on, Rog. You can't think we're this stupid. Can you?
6. Is Lying Now A Suspendable Offense?
Roger, the fact is this: Your multi-million dollar report did not prove Tom Brady or anyone else to be guilty. Yes, they look guilty, but they are not proven guilty. Are you going to hand out massive suspensions and punishments now based on maybes and sort-ofs?
Moreover, the only way you could issue punishment is that you deem beyond a doubt that Tom Brady lied. Wells said that Brady answered every single question he faced when interviewed, yet ... he's still suspended by four games. That means you are calling him a liar.
Which, OK, he might be lying. But are you now going to suspend everyone in your league who lies?
If telling lies is grounds for a suspension, you'll have nobody left to play the games on Sundays.
You won't have any coaches.
Or owners.
And you won't have a commissioner.
So, Roger, is this the new NFL, where lying can't be tolerated? If so, who will run the league in your absence?
7. What Are You Trying To Prove?
Roger, last summer, those of us who were paying attention found your two-game Ray Rice suspension to be ridiculous. It was not difficult for us to log on to Deadspin and read the police report and accounts from people who had seen the video. It detailed the events inside that elevator -- the events that you claim to have never known until TMZ released the video in September.
We laughed at you. We mocked you. We said that you were a man with absolutely no moral integrity.
And then with the video release, TMZ made you look impossibly worse.
You tried to save face, scrambling to issue a new suspension for a man you already suspended too lightly. You swore that you had no idea that he had punched the woman in the side of the head or dragged her limp, unconscious body out of the elevator --despite the fact that it was written in plain English on the police summons that he struck "her with his hand, rendering her unconscious, at the Revel Casino." That's despite a Revel employee who had seen the video saying that Rice hit his fiancee "like he punched a guy."
And it's despite the fact that The Associated Press, the most reputable news organization we've got, had your employee on tape saying she had seen the video.
This was your lowest moment as commissioner. Those national news programs you love so dearly had painted the targets on you. And you didn't like it.
Since then, you've operated under a new guise of discipline and integrity. Every morning, you seemingly assure yourself as you stare into the mirror, "Nobody messes with Roger." And so, you suspended Tom Brady for 25 percent of the season because he was likely at least generally aware of actions which were more likely than not to have happened (yet your employee, Troy Vincent, said that Brady conclusively knew about events that definitely happened, and you authorized that assessment).
What's the deal here, Rog? Do you miss the early days of your tenure, back when you were known to yield a swift hammer of justice? Back before people mocked you? Is this an effort to stem that trend and gain back some respect?
Is it working?
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
