Johnny Manziel to Brecksville news report is light on facts
September 23, 2014Tristan Thompson could be Cavs’ starting center
September 23, 2014Roger Goodell is not good at his job. He’s downright lousy at it. In fact, Roger Goodell, current Commissioner of the NFL, makes Homer Simpson look like a model employee, and is quick on his way to becoming one of the most disliked men in America. But unlike Homer Simpson, this boob from Sector 7G was over-promoted to the most prominent position in American sports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T63BuCh190U
Goodell’s failures are well-chronicled and much-dissected, but if you live in a cave at the bottom of the ocean that doesn’t have Wi-Fi (or has Time Warner), here are the Cliffs Notes: Goodell has had seven or eight high-profile screw-ups and blatant hypocrisies, chief of which was a series of suspensions for off-the-field conduct that punished Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon more for a positive test for a trace amount of marijuana than Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for punching his then fiancée in a casino elevator.1 In addition to the arbitrary suspensions, Goodell has failed to properly deal with a series of high-profile player arrests while demonstrating a comical inability to grapple with serious, complex issues like domestic violence, player safety, or how many commercial breaks one can tolerate.
So yeah, Roger Goodell is bad at his job. This is not a unique opinion, however (see here, here and here for three of roughly 449,845 such examples). This is not about whether or not he should be fired, or be forced to resign, or be waterboarded, or be forced to watch every remaining second of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ season.
Amazingly, there were still a few things that remained to be said about Goodell and his ongoing public opinion crisis, even though the end appears nigh and people have already entertained the idea of a post-Goodell NFL. The challenge here is saying something that can be heard over the cacophony of the depleted “Goodell=suck” narrative in the Internet/television echo chamber. My first idea was to astutely note the similarities between Roger Goodell and Richard Nixon, drop the mic, and walk offstage Chris Rock-style while yelling something about “the big piece of chicken.” This was apparently an obvious observation, as Bill Simmons made the comparison in a recent column and others similarly noted the familiarity of Goodell’s Watergate-like lack of judgment. But as of yet, no one has fully explored the parallels between Goodell’s NFL and the Nixon administration. So, let us analogize the two, torturing the comparison for every trace of meaning like a snooty English major pretending he understands Ulysses or Chuck Klosterman using N.W.A.’s connection to the Oakland Raiders to comment on the value and meaning of sincerity in society.
Goodell is currently polling lower than traffic and Mondays with the American public.
But the similarities between Elevator Punch-gate and Watergate don’t fully explain why Goodell’s NFL is so reminiscent of the Nixon administration. The thing that’s been so fascinating to me is just how much people suddenly hate Goodell. Mentioning Goodell in passing conversation provokes the same reaction as a girl saying in the midst of a group of guys, “I don’t know, I haven’t seen any of the Star Wars movies.” or, “What’s a Led Zeppelin?” Total, apoplectic, stuttering confusion: “What do you mean you’ve never seen Star Wars?” Try mentioning Goodell around “socially-conscious” individuals, and watch them disintegrate into babbling, incoherent rage. Goodell is currently polling lower than traffic and Mondays with the American public.
This crazed, irrational dislike is familiar to people that despised Nixon, especially after Watergate, when even Nixon’s stauncher supports refused to support him. Studying people’s opinions of Nixon provides insight into the anti-Goodell venom. For such opinions, look to none other than Hunter S. Thompson, Nixon’s most scathing contemporary critic and vehement detractor.
In The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter wrote the following:
“Nixon, at least, was blessed with a mixture of arrogance and stupidity that caused him to blow the boilers almost immediately after taking command. By bringing in hundreds of thugs, fixers and fascists to run the Government, he was able to crank almost every problem he touched into a mindbending crisis. About the only disaster he hasn’t brought down on us yet is a nuclear war with either Russia or China or both. . . but he still has time.”
Compare this criticism with that from Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg:
“Roger Goodell has to go. You had to figure that at some point, his arrogant act would come back to get him, and that time has come, with his absolutely ridiculous, smug, all-for-the-show actions this week.
Anybody can screw up. If you really try, you can screw up as big as Goodell screwed up this Ray Rice investigation. But only somebody as overconfident as Goodell could keep screwing up after the world screamed at him for screwing up.”
Sound familiar? What about Bill Simmons’ comments:
“When Keith Olbermann called for him to resign afterward, nobody even blinked. We’re just used to Goodell now. I wouldn’t call him a bad person, or a malicious one—just someone who seems overmatched AND stubborn. That’s a toxic combination. There have been moments when Goodell made Gary Bettman look like the next Steve Jobs. Think about THAT for a second. So was Goodell overpromoted by one level? Is this hopeless? Is there any chance he will improve? Is this like being at a restaurant when they’re one waiter short and one of the bus boys has to take orders, only in this case, Goodell is the bus boy and the entire NFL is the restaurant?”
The Atlantic had an excellent piece on how Roger Goodell’s own father, a senator, had his career ruined by opposing Richard Nixon. In his desire to avoid his own father’s fate, Goodell, in a stroke of poetic tragedy, ended up becoming more like his father’s political nemesis.
If you’re not convinced yet, Nixon was famous for being a hardcore (and genuinely knowledgable) football fan. Goodell’s cameo in Draft Day came (I’ve read, because I’m not interested in watching made-for-TV movies patronize Browns fans) alongside Frank Langella, who played—you guessed it—Richard Milhous Nixon himself in Frost/Nixon. Everything’s coming up Milhous!
All of this set up for an already perfect comparison well before ESPN’s Outside the Lines started the self-destruct sequence last Friday. Don Van Natta Jr. and Kevin Van Valkenburg spoke with sources inside and outside the NFL and revealed a pattern of covering up or consciously avoiding the truth with regards to the Rice Elevator Punch tape. “The interviews, viewed together, paint a picture of a league and a franchise whose actions—and inaction—combined to conceal —or ignore—he graphic violence of Rice’s assault.” The susceptibility of Goodell to influence from the owners he’s close to and the desire to manipulate the truth conjure images of a brash Nixon. In a triumph of old school investigative journalism, Van Natta Jr. and Van Valkenburg definitively became the Rice scandal’s version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post journalists whose tugging on the Watergate leads caused the Nixon administration to unravel in what may have been the American news scoop of the twentieth century. “Well, we certainly didn’t know what was on the tape” will likely be Goodell’s “I’m not a crook.”
We now digest sports like we digest politics.
We now digest sports like we digest politics. And like Watergate, Elevator Punch-gate will probably forever alter the way we consume sports. Watergate is famous for creating an era of cynicism and distrust of politicians and the government. Americans pretty much expect their politicians to be corrupt. Have recent events done the same for the NFL?2 When Goodell denied having seen the Ray Rice tape after the AP Report two weeks ago, at least a few Cleveland radio personalities didn’t believe the Commissioner for one second, and even SI’s Michael Rosenberg was skeptical. Is being in charge of the NFL like being an important figure in an inherently fatally flawed institution like the federal government? Is the NFL’s insatiable bloodlust for more revenue like the flood of money in politics? Is professional football players’ penchant for criminal behavior like rampant corruption in government?
When the stakes are so high and the dollar signs so large, can a virtuous non-asshole even get to the position Goodell is in? Can a team get an opportune call in a game without any of your friends making snide jokes about how the owner must have hit eighteen at Augusta with Goodell on Saturday? Surely we’ll keep watching the NFL and our beloved Browns, but after the recent events, are we all too cynical to take the NFL seriously anymore?
Goodell became Nixon: the symbol of an out-of-touch institution that can’t relate to the everyday fan or everyday voter, who helped ruin a product we believed in. Watching Goodell eat a Swenson’s cheeseburger would feel like watching a cocker spaniel cut up filet mignon with a fork and a knife. We can’t even picture Goodell wearing a jersey and going to a Browns game. Like Nixon, he’s a politician, not a person.
But where following the NFL as a league has been a vortex of depression and disappointment, there’s an opportunity for Cleveland’s teams to be a reprieve from cynicism. The idea of the professional athlete as a role model may be dead, but I’m happy to say that we have three extremely likable teams in Cleveland, at least temporarily. The Indians have a decidedly un-Cognito approach to hazing, the Cavs’ have LeBron, whose relationship with his children has only generated positive attention, and even the Browns have the underdog stories of Coach Pettine, Bryan Hoyer, and Isaiah Crowell. In the meantime, let’s not let the Roger Goodell stink muck up our fun. As Bryan Hoyer said this week, “The good stories don’t often get told, but there are a lot of them.” Here’s to hoping the good ones keep coming in Cleveland, and the Nixonian story that may sink Roger Goodell won’t sink football.
- The implicit message from this was that Josh Gordon would have been better off ruthlessly cold-cocking his significant other in the face or, presumably, chucking a garbage bag of live kittens into the ocean on Easter Sunday, than he would have been partaking in a recreational drug that’s legal in two states and in no way improves on-field performance. [↩]
- A baseballian parallel would be the steroid scandal of the aughts and skepticsm that still looms above today any time a player suddenly has a surge in power. [↩]
38 Comments
We now digest sports like we digest politics.
AMEN
Your first sentence is inaccurate. Your perception of his job is to steward football and the NFL. His job is to make the owners wealthy. There are those that think “anybody could have done the last CBA since TV revenue drives things”. They are wrong.
He’s terrible at PR and is not good as discipline czar. These things are not good for the league en masse but the money is still coming in. Once the revenue stream arrow levels off, he’ll have failed. Until then, he’s not going anywhere.
“Mentioning Goodell in passing conversation provokes the same reaction as a girl saying in the midst of a group of guys…”
Not entirely sure what difference it makes if it’s a girl or a guy in that one.
I apologize. I started reading but quickly realized that this is another article that puts all of the NFL’s ills on Goodell’s shoulders, which is just not correct. I got as far as the “chief among them” and the much hit upon but incorrect dialogue that Gordon’s suspension being initially longer than Rice’s was Goodell’s fault (look at the CBA and the weak NFLPA as well please).
Domestic violence, head trauma (player safety), player arrests, DUI, et cetera have long been a problem for the NFL (and society) and are actually taken more seriously now in the past.
Goodell’s main job is to make as much money for the owners and get the NFLPA to agree closer to the owner’s terms. He has done both, but he has failed in the also important task of keeping the investors/advertisers happy through botched PR including not having an impartial sect of the NFL handle all disciplinary matters (so it would seem more fair and transparent even if it isn’t).
Calling for Goodell’s job is the “in thing” to do these days, and the public pressure may cause these calls to become successful. However, if anyone thinks the next commissioner is going to handle things differently (other than PR), then they are sadly mistaken.
Again, I apologize for not making it all the way through the article as you may have brought up many of these points later on in it.
Generally speaking, nobody is all good or all bad.
Based on my reading of the opening couple of paragraphs, I get the feeling that this article is a one-sided, all-bad-all-the-time hatchet job that lacks any perspective or sense of proportion, and therefore there is no reason to read it. If I am wrong, please tell me and I will read it.
Fun fact: Truman had a lower approval rating basement and average than Nixon. People hated commissioners long before Goodell.
Goodell couldn’t shine Nixon’s shoes.
I still don’t understand how the NFL is supposed to fine, suspend, and general serve as moral arbitrator on cases that are still under investigation by real bona fide authorities. Especially in cases where the truth won’t be easily available on an elevator security camera. This moral outrage is pushing the League and the NFLPA down a very dangerous road. But it’s the League’s own idiocy to let it get like this.
The piece refers to universal dislike of Goodell as “crazed and irrational.”
Nixon
Agreed. My feeling is that the NFL can come to a different conclusion than the criminal court because they need to protect themselves. Therefore, abiding closer to the standards of a civil court case, which allows for an easier guilty verdict (or guilt to a degree – in the NFL case ending in fines or suspension). But, in most cases, they need to allow for the courts to gather the evidence (unless the evidence on hand is enough to go through their process).
And, the NFL needs to have a separate “unbiased” arm to diagnose and deliver the punishments along with a relatively rigid set of terms for what is and is not punishable.
In the past year, the most disconcerting thing to me is that they have eschewed everything in the CBA and come up with “exempt lists” and such that teams did not even realize existed as a way of punishing players such as Adrian Peterson. The NFL is very much becoming one of the societies that sci-fi writers fear and the public is helping it get there.
Okay, went back through and read it. It may mention the hatred being crazed and irrational, but he article starts off with hyperbole of it’s own by stating that Goodell is worse at his job than Homer Simpson.
Really, reading through the first 2 paragraphs again along with the comments here, the article would have been better served to have the 3rd paragraph up front. I gave up the first time before even getting there as Kyle even notes that the amount of “I hate Goodell” articles has grown tiresome.
And the whole time the NFLPA has sat by idly, letting Goodell make up the rules as he sees fit. Disconcerting. Between this and the way the MLBPA sat back to let A-Rod get railroaded, I think the unions have basically ceded their power to the owners. Marvin Miller died and all the organized power in pro sports just disappeared.
I don’t know what the hell happened to sports in the last 5 years or so, but it is becoming nauseating to scroll through ESPN or any other sports coverage and get inundated with 200 articles that have nothing to do with the sport and instead are shock-and-awe pieces about the bad off field behavior of athletes. How is ANY of this a surprise to anyone? If the Ray Rice story is the first time you believe domestic violence has occurred with an NFL player, I have no sympathy for your feigned shock and distaste. People in general do drugs, assault other people, lie, cheat, womanize, drive too fast, and commit every other appalling behavior. How anyone is surprised when young, rich, immature athletes commit some of the same behaviors is beyond me.
Goodell is a pompous idiot who is too smug and stubborn for his own good, but its not an indictment on him that players commit these acts. Its been happening for forever. We only know about these things because we’re living in the world of camera phones, Twitter, and every other conceivable way to make private lives public. This leads to public outcry and each media pundit trying to out PC one another with more outlandish calls for resignations, firings, etc. Again, Goodell is an idiot, but it is going to take time for the sports world to adjust to this new reality. Occasionally they’re going to misjudge the public’s perception, and then we’re going to be in another situation like this one.
Meanwhile I just want to talk about the game. ESPN is beginning to feel like MTV when they stopped playing music videos and started making crappy TV shows, only its real game highlights replaced with crappy Herm Edward bits.
“Generally speaking, nobody is all good or all bad.” Amen. But, but, but what about “narrative”?
Nixon was actually quite popular before Watergate, and broadly considered to be a highly capable leader. His personal foibles were evident to those that knew him and interacted with him, both on a personal and professional level (as with any president – gosh, see his predecessor), but there certainly was no “universal” opinion that “Nixon=suck.” It’s sloppy to compare two men in unrelated professions based on a single or even a few anecdotes – even if those are the anecdotes that stick out most (Watergate and Rayricegate). Indeed, the fact that we now attach “gate” to everything, like I just did, is evidence of just how shocking Watergate was – because it was such a stark deviation from what had been seen from Nixon (leadership, strength, etc.). The real tragedy of Nixon and Watergate is that he violated and destroyed the public trust when he absolutely had no need to do so.
The narrative comparison is particularly sloppy when we then take those small anecdotes and ascribe judgments of those men, as whole beings, based simply on those anecdotes. As you said, generally speaking, nobody is all good or all bad.
“What’s most interesting is that the parallels between an American President and the NFL Commissioner are so obvious and vivid.”
Whenever I hear or read someone say that something is “obvious” in a persuasive speech or writing, the persuasion is usually lost on me. Whenever someone says that something is “obvious,” it general means that it isn’t obvious at all. It’s the final weapon when actual persuasion has reached its weak apex. I started reading this article with some interest, clouded by a hint of suspicion. When I came across the above sentence, suspicion was that prime mover and interest was nothing but a shade. My mind is now churning with all the ways that the two men are not similar, or not incompetent, or not despicable. The message was lost. Yes, Ray Rice certainly may be to Roger Goodell what Watergate was to Nixon; but I don’t find the comparison of the men very obvious or convincing, beyond the superficial.
It was a good attempt, and enjoyable; I’m just not with it – except for the last paragraph, which was great.
While we are on the subject of Watergate, can we promise not to append -gate to any scandal in the future? It is lazy headline writing.
And Watergate wasn’t a scandal about water.
It’s also worth noting that (the last time I saw) athletes commit crimes at a rate below that of the general public. 32 teams x 52 man roster = 1500+ young men. They’re not all going to be angels.
Nixon was a snake in many ways, but he got things done. He wormed his way into the Republican nomination three times. Twice he won the presidency. He could play the game. He was manipulative. He was effective. His fatal flaw wasn’t overconfidence, but paranoia and a desire to have every advantage even when he didn’t need them. He was the opposite of Goodell.
The Ray Rice debacle was a drama that a JV political hack would be able to deal with. That the NFL couldn’t shows what incompetent rank amateurs they are. I don’t see any substantive similarities to Watergate. Sorry.
Really nice piece
Side note: HST’s later work for ESPN’s Page2 was pretty good. Not his best, but worth reading. I thought I remember hearing it had been published together somewhere, but can’t find proof of that. Some is available online though I remember there being more.
One last point… I think there’s a little bit of egocentrism (or chronocentrism, if you will) going on here with Goodell. Media outlets would have you believe these are the darkest days ever in the sport, but there’s been a lot of dumb, controversial, horrific drama in the history of the NFL and sports in general. Yes, it’s a big story. No, it’s not that earth shattering.
Not to sound like an old coot, but off the top of my head…. Bountygate, Hornung/Karras betting on games (!), Eugene Robinson getting arrested for hiring a prostitute and then playing in the Super Bowl the next day, OJ Simpson, Kosar gaming the system, Elway gaming the system, Adam “PacMan” Jones’ entire career, Janet Jackson’s boob, Joe Namath’s mafiaso night club, Belicheat, Concussiongate, steroid use in the ’80’s (lead to steroid testing in ’87), Mark Chmura, Rae Carruth, Leonard Little, Donte Stallworth, the’46 Championship gambling scandal, heck… the entire sport has a long history of ties with organized crime (see: Tim Mara, Art Rooney, Arthur McBride…)
Want to know more? Check out these titles at your local library:
They Call It a Game by Bernie Parrish
Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football by Dan Moldea
I read this comment in the voice-over from Starship Troopers
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pBD-E4A7ey8/UaFHnNlv6hI/AAAAAAAAYBM/jPYnkY779nk/s1600/1+starship+troopers+1.jpg
A few more for fun.
-Ray Lewis.
-Art Modell blocking the Baltimore expansion team.
-Michael Vick’s ties to organized crime (though the dog portion got the headlines).
-DeBartolo’s suspension-forced selling after the whole NO extortion mess.
-Barrett Robbin’s Superbowl eve Tijauna trip
-Junior Seau / Steve McNair / Jovan Belcher suicides
and, of course the one few discuss:
-Seattle Seahawks having the most PED suspensions the past few years and a magic, physically gifted defense at the same time.
It’s funny to me how I always forget about Mike Vick. I actually made a(n unfunny) joke the other day about the NFL beating women and child… what’s next – puppies? Oh yeah, the whole Vick thing.
I’m guessing there’s a lot from the 70’s and before that I’m not old enough to have known about.
All pretty much true, but the NFL didn’t suddenly start being run by corrupt, money grubbing A-holes extorting cash on the sentiments of working stiffs just because Roger Goodell became commissioner. If anyone knows THAT, it’s us.
You, sir, have skills.
not to mention the selective outrage. e.g., hope solo.
fun fact: harry truman was a bigger racist than even woodrow wilson.
Comment-gate.
contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think RG has been a poor commissioner. His biggest mistake goes back to the collectively bargained power of player conduct oversight. The players give him a ton of grief over his handling of many situations but they gave him this power. If there was another mechanism to deal with that he would be seen as a great commissioner (see NFL revenue and Browns’ org value 1997 vs the $1.1 BILLION paid by Haslam). Don’t get me wrong, he supremely missed on recent situations.
This is pure speculation but his flaw in the Rice situation was probably buying into the team’s accounts and not following through on his own investigation. I don’t know how these things usually work but I think the Ravens were highly involved from the early onset while other teams in similar misconduct situations tend to maintain neutrality while the NFL & law enforcement do their thing (CB with the Donte Stallworth situation). That is what should have happen and RG should’ve made it so. His failure to fully investigate is negligent and diminished the nature of the crime. However, his willingness to, speculatively, forego further investigation seems to have been influenced by Ravens involvement and prosecutorial agreement for counseling in lieu of conviction. If true, those two items would lead many to proceed similarly.
As for the Gordon situation, if he really did only test at 16/13.6 then the penalty would probably been dissolved similar to the Welket situation. Those numbers came from the Gordon camp, not the NFL. I wish JG was playing but I think there may be some deception on the particulars of the test results. Even if it was, the nautre of NFL collective bargaining makes it very difficult to make exceptions.
I think we also need to remember the unearthed controversies RG inherited. For example, Concussion stuff seems to have been, for a lack of better words, “covered up” by prior commissioners. In the wake of a new era of player safety, there was no alternatives for situations like Bountygate.
All that said, I think he supremely messed up and has not historically given the appropriate attention to the serious problem of domestic violence. That goes for the entire league, not just the commissioner’s office. I think a committee of owners should hear the complaint against RG and issue any fines, reprimands, or more aggressive penalties. That would show some fairness and equality between league executives and players/coaches.
It’s not with the current trend to pile on the commish, but I think a bigger look into the NFL and controversies over the last few decades makes RG look flawed, but also a pro sports commissioner that has had to tackle major issues not seen by his predecessors in any sport. As such, I wouldn’t say he is worst pro sports commish over that time either.
I feel like people who only want to see sports and scores are either a dying breed, or are liars. I frequent WFNY for the same reasons I think most of us do. I like some in-depth opinions about our teams, but also importantly because I like staying away from the horsesht that ESPN has become. If you recall when either Brittney was actively losing her mind in public or MJ was taken to the hospital, ESPN televised the ambulance leaving the mansion. ESPN did. At that point I started to not rely on their reporting and told myself to stop watching. I was so rutted in my ritual that I still had it on and had to ween myself off like a crack addict. But I made myself stop watching, slowly, to now where I barely even watch MNF. That transition lead me to sites like this (this one being my favorite,
of course) and SI.com (which is starting to go to the darkside) and
didthetribewinlastnight.com and sportsnetwork.com – mostly quality
reporting without the gossip and hen-kvetchary. ESPN is TMZSports before TMZSports. I don’t go to the site unless I have a fantasy league through them. And I’m not the only one. SC is dipping in ratings and has been for several quarters now.
But the fact of the matter is, they still have great ratings. People still tune in, which to me means people actually DO want the gossip in their sports reporting, even if they say otherwise. And that is just sad.
SI, ESPN, and all the major sport outlets have a whole bunch of really good articles from really good writers. If you don’t ever peruse their site, then you are missing out on some good stuff. However, they have so much filler surrounding those articles that I completely understand if you choose that avoidance.
People criticize TMZ (and rightfully so for a variety of reasons), but what I like about the sports reporting they do (the gossipy stuff) is that they’re not beholden to the leagues like ESPN, SI, et al are. They can burn bridges and not give a damn. In a weird way, they’ve got more journalistic integrity than places like ESPN. Or maybe rather, their complete lack of integrity results in fearless reporting that other places can/t and won’t do.
I wonder – if ESPN or SI got a hold of the Ray Rice elevator tape, would they have shown it? Or justify burying it to save the league the drama?
Valid point. But, as mgbode pointed out below, you have to get around all that filler to get to something meaningful.
Jimma Haslem says “Howdy partner!”
haha you got me there