Roger Goodell is over in the U.K. — making a fool of himself and the NFL again, this time with the bumbling of another huge domestic violence issue.
While promoting the Rams vs. Giants game in London — Goodell is forced to answer questions about sagging ratings, and a wife-beating punter — who kept a running diary of his savage deeds.
During a sit down with BBC Sport reporter Richard Conway — Goodell spoke about “standards” and being a “professional” when it comes to leagues dumb response to players celebrating, while ignoring their off the field violence.
I’d much rather watch Roger Goodell get on television and say the league is no fun, because consumers don’t want to see black athletes celebrate every big play in such a violent sport.
Then I’d prefer he just say that this private company called the NFL is only focused on the product, and would prefer that players handle their business during down time aka, non work hours.
Instead he uses code words like “professionalism” to explain why we as fans, don’t understand that taking your helmet off, or proposing to a kicking net is going to drive viewers away.
So in that same bumbling question and answer session — Goodell actually tries to explain why Odell Beckham was fined $24K for removing his helmet while celebrating, yet his teammates battering of his wife never registered a blip on the leagues radar.
They are. I understand the public’s misunderstanding of those things and how that can be difficult for them to understand how we get to those positions. But those are things that we have to do. I think it’s a lot deeper and a lot more complicated than it appears but it gets a lot of focus.
When questioned about Josh Brown — Goodell used legal Jargon to explain why Brown hasn’t been suspended more than one previous game, and why his actions don’t take precedent over simple celebration.
Well you have to go and get the facts. We have asked repeatedly for those facts and the information that’s been gathered by law enforcement both orally and in writing. And we weren’t able to get access to it. So you have to make decisions on whatever information you have. We take this issue incredibly seriously. This is something we’ve been working on with policy changes, to educating our players to make sure they understand how they deal with issues with their family, give them resources to be able to deal with this. But when it happens we’re not going to tolerate it. So we have some new information here, we’ll evaluate that in the context of our policy and we’ll take it from there.
Goodell and company will now have to deal with questions about why Brown was extended so much privilige from the league and the Giants.
He’s likely to face a barrage of calls for him to step down — after making upwards of $200 million over the past five seasons — would Goodell consider stepping away filthy rich?
This firestorm of criticsm is only beginning.
