In a few days, friends and family will gather to stuff their faces with pizza and hot wings, vote on their favorite commercials and watch the greatest sporting event of the year. The Super Bowl is a culmination of a long football season, wasted Sundays and countless hours frittered away on managing fantasy leagues. However, it’s also inadvertently a celebration of a league sprinkled with criminals, misogynists and habitual drug users running wild under the glazed eyes of their money hungry and socially incompetent NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
This Sunday, when the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New England Patriots, football fans everywhere will be treated to a hard-nosed game between the two best teams in the league. But the game will also highlight the inadequate and clown-like leadership of Goodell. On one hand it could be argued that Goodell has done a terrific job during his tenure as, according to Forbes, the National Football League made over $9 billion in revenue last year and Goodell has stated that his goal is to reach $25 billion in revenue by 2027.
On the other hand, in his valiant efforts to squeeze every dollar from fans and sponsors, he has also turned a blind eye to ongoing criminal and misogynistic behavior from the NFL’s players and, most recently, allegations of cheating by the New England Patriots. Normally the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl is chock-full of analysis and trash talking, but this year the media has been focused on what is being coined “deflate-gate,” in reference to the allegations that the Patriots deflated 11 of 12 footballs during the AFC championship game. Patriots coach Bill Belichick has strongly denied the accusations but it’s hard to believe a man who was responsible for “spygate” in 2007 when he broke the rules by filming the New York Jets during a game.
Even though league officials have confirmed the footballs were illegally deflated, the silence from the NFL’s spineless leader Goodell has been deafening. According to ESPN, outspoken Seahawk’s cornerback Richard Sherman said that he didn’t believe Goodell would punish the Patriots because he is good friends with the Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft. The fact Goodell that has refused to comment on this raging controversy lends credibility to Sherman’s claim and highlights the perception that Goodell is only concerned about money and protecting the interests of owners as opposed to what’s best for the league and its fans.
Earlier this year Goodell completely bungled how he handled the Ray Rice domestic violence incident, in which video surfaced showing Rice hitting and knocking out his then fiancée in a elevator. Goodell initially tried to protect the interests of the Baltimore Ravens by only giving a two-game suspension to their star running back Rice. However when the actual video of Rice knocking out his fiancée surfaced, public outrage finally forced Goodell to do the right thing and suspend Rice indefinitely. In all fairness to Goodell, he is in charge of a league that has had to deal with not only women beaters, but issues involving league stars like Adrian Peterson being charged with child abuse and Aaron Hernandez being indicted for double homicide.
Despite being in charge of the most lucrative and powerful athletic organization in the world, Goodell is so concerned about the bottom line that he conveniently ignores what’s happening at the bottom of the barrel. Goodell immediately fined Seahawk running back Marshawn Lynch for refusing to talk to the media and warned him about making obscene gestures but has still remained silent on the Patriot cheating scandal.
Goodell has tried to create an image of a league that is fan friendly, socially responsible and kid conscious through an aggressive advertising campaign, all while ignoring the serious issues that are facing the league. Goodell has chosen to be reactive in dealing with these issues instead of being proactive and now looks like an incompetent fool who is unable to deal effectively with the calamities that are destroying the integrity of the NFL. Here’s hoping that the deflate-gate debacle will deflate Goodell’s ego enough to prevent the Super Bowl from becoming a super shame.