Roger Goodell Sucks

Some good things have happened during Roger Goodell's time as NFL commissioner. The league has remained the most popular in North American sports, we've had great Super Bowls, and the NFL has avoided catastrophes like MLB's steroid crisis and the NHL's cancellation of games. The league has also kept ahead of drug and steroid controversies, if not necessarily ahead of the users themselves. Goodell has done some good things, or at least kept out of the way as the gravy train rolls on.

But so far in his tenure, Goodell is the worst NFL commissioner in a very long time. If we're being candid, he's probably the worst ever. Goodell has run the league like the Wall Street CEOs who caused the financial crisis: high-handed, short-sighted, and with virtually no regard for those beneath him. His decision-making is not aimed at helping the league's hundreds of players, dozens of coaches, or millions of fans. It's aimed at helping exactly 32 people: NFL team owners. Maybe 31 now that Goodell has decided to torpedo his relationship with Robert Kraft.

Goodell was the man most responsible for the 2011 lockout that could have shortened or cancelled the season. The Saints bounty scandal blew up in his face. The league has mishandled player discipline, with inflexible punishments for players like Kevin Williams and Pat Williams. Until a few months ago, however, Goodell's most important legacy concerned player safety. His record can be described as both hypocritical and theatrical. The NFL has a concussion problem. The more research appears, the more obvious the link between head injuries and CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE has been implicated in the health problems and deaths of numerous ex-players, most famously Junior Seau.

Goodell's approach to a legitimate problem, though, has steered the league towards two-hand touch, and that has rightly drawn criticism, while visible progress on the concussion issue remains elusive. The new "defenseless receiver" rules are routinely misinterpreted, and it's become pretty obvious that officials are incapable of calling them correctly in real time. Two years ago, an absurd new rule dictated that runners outside the tackle box may not lead with the crown of the helmet. As best I can tell, everyone hates this rule. Players hate it. Ex-players hate it. Fans hate it. Even referees seem to hate it, since the policy is rarely enforced. But apparently owners supported it. That's the cornerstone of Goodell's NFL: disrespect for players.

In fact, I'm not convinced that Goodell is even especially interested in the owners, except to the extent necessary to sustain their support. I think he's like a corrupt politician or a dirty police officer: Goodell just likes having authority, and he likes exercising power over people who have less power than he does. I have no reason to believe that Goodell is racist, but in 2015, it is unseemly that Goodell's power is primarily over a group — NFL players — that is overwhelmingly made up of young black men.

The "lowered helmet" rule may actually increase concussions, by forcing runners to keep their chins exposed. Despite — as far as I'm aware — zero evidence that lowering the head causes concussions, the league went ahead with it, because it "proves" that the NFL is serious about safety. Except it doesn't. It's like the airport not letting you bring toothpaste on board. The NFL makes a big show of supposed efforts on player safety, because it's really doing almost nothing to help player safety.

Goodell remains the strongest advocate for an 18-game regular season, which would be devastating to players' health. He has rigidly enforced lengthy suspensions for drug violations, including those that are not performance-enhancing, while declining to suspend players for unnecessary roughness and head-hunting. A player who takes Adderall gets a four-game suspension. A player who stomps on someone with his cleats gets a one-game suspension. A player who spears a defenseless receiver or dives at a player's knees when he's not looking doesn't face suspension at all. On-field violence, unless it happens on national television or it's directed at a starting quarterback, earns a slap-on-the-wrist fine.

Over the past six months, the NFL has been dominated by a single story line: DeflateGate. On the eve of the Super Bowl, Goodell inexplicably chose to make the air pressure in footballs a high-profile issue. The scandal overshadowed a thrilling Super Bowl, and continued to dominate headlines in the offseason. The Wells report looked targeted and biased when it came out, aimed at a pre-determined conclusion, and that's even more true now. As the case against Tom Brady and the Patriots has gotten shakier, Goodell's reaction has been to double down, to try to "win".

It's the same pattern we saw with Bountygate, a crushing defeat for Goodell that saw former commissioner Paul Tagliabue overturn all player suspensions. Overreaching in his relentless pursuit to punish players is the defining characteristic of Goodell's approach to his office. We saw it in 2012, and it has become even more apparent with DeflateGate.

The latest NFL story to make the nightly news concerns IK Enemkpali and Geno Smith. Enemkpali (a second-year reserve for the New York Jets) punched Smith (the Jets' starting quarterback) in the locker room and was immediately cut, though he was quickly claimed on waivers by the Buffalo Bills.

What I find most jarring about Goodell's "leadership" — and he seems to believe that leadership consists of issuing punishments — is the contrast in which offenses earn meaningful discipline. In Goodell's league, a player who punches someone in his private life earns a suspension, maybe a year or more if that someone is a woman or a child. A player who punches someone during a football game earns a 15-yard penalty. It appears that Enemkpali will receive no punishment at all from the league. The NFL is increasingly involved in players' lives off the field, but it seems to have little interest in what players do around football fields and locker rooms. Why is a football league punishing players for what they do when they're not playing football, but ignoring what they do wrong when they are playing football?

A player who is accused of doing something wrong while he's not playing football can receive career-altering discipline, even if he's found not guilty by the criminal justice system. A player who does something dangerous, unethical, or violent during a football game might get a $50,000 fine. Which, when you're making $3 million a year, is not that big a deal. The remaining $2,950,000 still affords a pretty comfortable lifestyle.

Most Americans now regard recreation marijuana use as a trivial issue, but it earns a four-game suspension for a first offense. Ndamukong Suh stepped on Aaron Rodgers and put his whole weight (320 lbs) on that foot, but he got a one-game suspension, even though it was the ninth time Suh had been fined or suspended by the league for unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct. Tom Brady may have kinda-sorta at some point suggested to the Patriots' equipment staff that he likes the football slightly underinflated. He gets a four-game suspension. Enemkpali, who broke a teammate's jaw in the locker room, gets nothing.

In contrast to his predecessor Tagliabue, Goodell has also taken a consistently regressive position on social issues. He has shown no interest in the ongoing controversy concerning the Washington Redskins' name. He hasn't taken any meaningful positions on women's issues — unless you count his laughably lax two-game suspension of Ray Rice, a punishment so tone-deaf that after initially defending his decision, Goodell later overreacted by revising the suspension to become indefinite, effectively ending Rice's career — or LGBTQ issues. The league continues to give recreational drug users the same punishment as steroid users and drunk drivers.

One of the highlights of Tagliabue's tenure was his bold decision to move the Pro Bowl from Arizona when the state refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day. Today, that is widely seen as an instance of inspired leadership, the right thing to do and a sign of unity with his players, many of whom considered King a hero. Goodell shies away from social issues. His idea of support for women's issues is to allow pink jerseys during October. I applaud the NFL for supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but honestly, who isn't aware of breast cancer? The league's too-little, too-late response to its domestic violence P.R. disaster was a ham-handed ad campaign that felt like what it was: a rushed attempt to put out a public relations fire. It's Goodell's approach to every issue: attack the publicity, not the problem.

Under Goodell's leadership, the NFL has been defined by scandal. Casual fans are more aware of the Brady DeflateGate, Saints' Bountygate, and Spygate scandals than they are of the great Super Bowls we've seen in the last decade. DeflateGate overshadowed Super Bowl XLIX, which was one of the best championship games I've ever seen, in any sport. Brady's suspension got bigger headlines than the NFL draft, and it continues to hang over this preseason. When I saw my cousins last weekend, they were talking about Sydney Seau's speech on the behalf of a father who died before his Hall of Fame induction.

The league still hasn't made meaningful progress with regard to head injuries and the long-term health effects of a football career. Training camp fights are a daily story, and Goodell's discipline policy hasn't made a noticeable impact in off-field misconduct or player arrests. He's treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. The NFL is a hugely popular league, and football is a great sport. But Goodell's mismanagement is going to hurt the NFL in the long run. He's the wrong man for the job.