Silverman: Where's The Leadership? And Where The Heck Is Goodell?
By Steve Silverman
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Where is the leadership in the NFL?
A week ago, it seemed the world was angry at commissioner Roger Goodell because he had botched the Ray Rice decision.
Now, that error is just the tip of the iceberg.
Goodell and the NFL have a huge problem, and they can't ignore this one and hold their breath until this weekend's ratings come in showing the league dominates all other programming on television.
The league is taking hits on all sides, including from its sponsors. First it was the Radisson hotel chain suspending its deal with the Minnesota Vikings. But then the big salvo was fired by Anheuser-Busch. The venerable beer company with the Clydesdales is one of the most visible sponsors in North American sports and the official beer of the NFL. The powers that be within that corporation are angry, and they vented their feelings in this statement:
"We are disappointed and increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season. We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code. We have shared our concerns and expectations with the league."
It's not just Rice anymore. The Adrian Peterson child-abuse case is horrifying, but the NFL is dogged by additional domestic battery cases involving Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers and Ray McDonald of the San Francisco 49ers.
It all makes the NFL look like a league of cretins and thugs. That is definitely not the case. For every brutal abuser there are dozens of law-abiding players who respect their women and adore their children.
The NFL arrest rates for domestic violence is about half the rate (55.4 percent) for society as a whole, according to statistics gathered by Nate Silver's 538.com website.
What seems like an epidemic for the NFL may not be.
The big issue for the league is that it does not appear to have any real policies for these domestic violence and child abuse cases. The situation is fluid, and that's evidenced by what's going on with Peterson.
When charges of child cruelty were filed against him last Friday, the Vikings sat him down against the New England Patriots. The Patriots rolled to an easy victory, and a day after the game Peterson was reinstated. When the Vikings were criticized for letting him rejoin the team, they backtracked in the middle of the night and put him on the exempt list.
The Vikings made the decision to suspend Peterson, reinstate him and bar him again. Not the NFL. Owner Zygi Wilf has been making these moves.
Since the Rice controversy reached a fever pitch, Goodell has seemingly been in hiding.
The commissioner was not at Levi's Stadium for the opening of the 49ers' new home. He should be at every public venue he can show his face. He can't let public reaction dictate his every move.
That's a big part of the current problem. The NFL seems to be reacting to public criticism in every decision that is made, and not its own well-researched policies.
The NFL may be the most popular sports league in the world, but it is not immune to any of the problems that impact all of society. When those problems hit the league's celebrity-players, the public is going to have a reaction.
Those reactions are most visible on Twitter, and the whole world can see them. Social media is now the communication mode of choice, and it seems the NFL doesn't know how to govern itself when the public reacts.
Angry football fans used to write old-fashioned pen-and-ink letters or make phone calls. The NFL handled that kind of public dissatisfaction with ease.
But not any longer. The commissioner of the NFL is standing on top of the kitchen table and pulling up his pant legs as he screams at the sight of a mouse running around the room.
Full-fledged panic.
The league needs to find calm, reasoned leadership that can live with its own policies and stick to them. If the NFL had strong policies to begin with, it wouldn't have to panic when the public registered its disapproval.
The Rice, Peterson, Hardy and McDonald cases are current incidents, but NFL players and society has been involved domestic abuse cases and other crimes for decades.
Strong, reasoned leadership would take the NFL out of this deep hole.
It clearly does not have that.
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