NFLPA President: Goodell's Discipline Has 'Affected Competitive Balance' Throughout NFL
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- There may be plenty of fans outside of New England rejoicing after Roger Goodell's victory over Tom Brady and the Patriots, but it is not the first time Goodell has handed down an arbitrary punishment with little to no transparency or consistency throughout the process.
And as long as Goodell's absolute power goes unchecked in the CBA, we're only in the early stages of the commissioner's transformation into Emperor Palpatine.
NFLPA president Eric Winston spoke out about the matter on Wednesday, slamming Goodell and the NFL's system of punishment that is inherently unfair due to the "random" nature of suspensions and how they have affected Winston's favorite two-word phrase: competitive balance.
"The system isn't perfect. The system isn't fair or transparent," said Winston, speaking to Ross Tucker and Mike Nolan on The Opening Drive. "And I think the one thing that's been lost in this conversation is how it's affected competitive balance throughout the league. ... The NFL's always so big on competitive balance, but you see all these random suspensions that have been handed down over the past two, three years, it's definitely affected competitive balance.
"Your team might be playing a guy that should have been out there or wasn't out there. You know how it is with the schedules and everything in the league."
It's easy for Winston to sound like a sour grape here. It's simply the nature of suspensions that certain teams will be affected and unaffected by the absence of a particular player. But he definitely makes a good point about the arbitrary, ambiguous nature of many recent penalties, and how more consistency could at least make the lack of competitive balance understandable.
There was never a clear, fair explanation why Ray Rice initially received a two-game suspension before being banned indefinitely, while Adrian Peterson immediately got an indefinite ban for a similar offense. There's no reasonable explanation why Brady's four-game suspension for his alleged role in an equipment violation, met with no tangible evidence, equated to performance-enhancing drug use. There's no explanation why Greg Hardy's domestic violence suspension was reduced from ten games to four. And the list goes on. It's not that these punishments weren't deserved, it's that there's no transparency or consistency to the process.
Goodell really is Vince McMahon making himself the guest referee against "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
Winston, however, is well aware that the NFLPA made their bed when they granted Goodell his powers by agreeing to the current CBA. He is already working toward making changes that would, at least, bring about more consistency in punishments, but also has to work with the way things are with the CBA right now.
"We'll have to probably try to make some changes just to have some inherent fairness and some inherent transparency that you would think would be given anyway," said Winston, "but we're probably going to try to right some things in there."
Winston also referenced other cases that have popped up because of the CBA and have nothing to do with suspensions, like the scandal involving NFL owners trying to skirt the rules of the CBA by unfairly withholding $120 million in revenue from players. An arbitrator ruled in favor of the NFLPA. Despite Winston's dubious gripe over "competitive balance," there are still real problems that need fixing.
So while the players do deserve their share of the blame for agreeing to such sweeping powers for Goodell in the first place, it would be nice to at least have more clarity and consistency in the way Goodell punishes players. If such conditions existed, there would be no grounds for players or union reps like Winston to raise issues about competitive balance. The wildly erratic nature of Goodell's suspensions makes his reign feel more tyrannical than diplomatic.
Until some semblance of fairness seeps into the punishments themselves - and to be clear, inconsistent punishments in the NFL go well beyond DeflateGate - these questions will remain. But as long as Goodell remains in power and safer than ever, the punishments will probably remain just as unpredictable.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
