NFL: No Fan League

NFL owners are often accused of running a good old boys club with its commissioner, Roger Goodell, their hand picked mouth piece. Under Goodell's reign, NFL owners enjoy record profits annually and they in turn rewarded Goodell to the tune of $44 million dollars last year. Despite continued high profile police cases involving players arrested for domestic violence, child abuse, DUI, assault, rape, and drug dealing, the league continues to grow in popularity making Roger Goodell, Roger Good Sell.

However, with his recent botched handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case and the outcry over it, it would seem the NFL stands to face serious fallout. The media has yet to let up over the potential cover up by Good Sell or Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti and yet viewership is at an all time high.

While a few of the NFL's sponsors have voiced concern over how serious the league is at combating domestic violence or cleaning up player behavior, the reality is for every sponsor who might decide to drop their account with the NFL, there are probably ten others waiting in line to hop on board the league's money train. Besides, fans will continue to watch the games no matter who sponsors them.

Look at Baltimore Ravens fans. Their owner, Steve Bisciotti, team president, Dick Cass, and general manager, Ozzie Newsome, all knew the content of the infamous elevator video showing Ray Rice knocking out his then fiancee, Janay Palmer, with one punch. They may or may not have decided to not watch the video but they received both a verbal and written description of it. Worse, when the team's head coach, John Harbaugh, asked them to cut Rice immediately from the team, they all over ruled him and went to great lengths to minimize how long Rice would be suspended.

Ravens team leaders went to great lengths to downplay the incident as much as possible. Bisciotti probably lied at worst, or with held information at best, when questioned by his subordinate, Roger Good Sell. Bisciotti, and his top team executives then put undue pressure on Janay Palmer to downplay what happened when they attended her meeting with the commissioner. Bisciotti then goes on to basically bribe Rice by assuring him of a job with the team to ensure he sticks to the company line. Finally, he tosses the only sane person in this fiasco, his head coach, under the bus by making him the face of the organization when answering to the press in which he also sticks to the company line.

It is no wonder scores of female Ravens fans were seen wearing Ray Rice jerseys at the team's season opener. It's also no wonder why fantasy football players are angered over the extended suspension of Rice. And if the Ravens fall short of the playoffs this year, their fans will scream it is because of the unfair treatment of Ray Rice.

Whether it is Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Ray McDonald, or any of the scores of other NFL players who screw up while off the field this season, the fans don't care. They continue to follow their favorite teams because they provide a wonderful distraction to their own mundane lives. They will continue to purchase the numerous products pitched to them during commercial breaks while wearing their favorite player jerseys whether the player is a convicted felon or not.

Until the NFL becomes the No Fan League, we are only fooling ourselves if we think the league, its owners, team executives, and commissioner are committed to cleaning up player behavior.

 

Excellent work, Mr. Good Sell.

Hold Your Applause

For those who want to congratulate Roger Goodell, the Baltimore Ravens, and the NFL as a whole for extending the suspension of Ray Rice after TMZ released footage of the star running back looking more like a young George Foreman flattening Joe Frazier, hold your applause. They have done far more harm than good throughout this process. 

Commissioner Goodell is fortunate to have increased the money owners swim in. He should be looking for a new job but because he has done a terrific job of increasing revenue across the league, he will survive this public relations storm. There is no excuse for him to have passed judgment on Rice if his claims of not having seen the video are true. How do you hand out a punishment when you know you do not have all the facts? To claim the casino or police would not hand over the tape doesn't fly. He could have, and should have, forced Rice's hand by simply telling him he will be suspended indefinitely until he has seen all of the evidence. Furthermore, why would he interview Rice's victim, his then fiancee and now wife, with Ray sitting next to her? Anyone who has seen an episode of Law and Order knows this just doesn't lead to the truth. Goodell more than fumbled the ball with his investigation, he tried to pull one over the public and it has come back to bite him.

As for the Baltimore Ravens, they are only terminating Rice's contract because they fear the public's wrath more than they will miss Rice's tough running. If Baltimore had any sense of decency, Rice's contract would have been terminated last spring. However, they had more important matters to contend with like what might happen if Rice received just a two game suspension and then signed with division rivals Pittsburgh or Cincinnati? By releasing him now, that is no longer a fear because no organization short of an Al Davis run Oakland would sign this guy.

Worst of all is the NFL as a group. What other profession goes so far to find ways to hang on to young men whose conduct is criminal? Whether it is domestic violence, DUI, assault, multiple failed drug tests, or making joke bomb threats at an airport, the NFL rewards far too many of its players with big money contracts when they really should send them packing. This goes back decades. I remember Bill Parcells cutting a player who missed a team meeting. When the rarely used player pointed out that Lawrence Taylor also missed the meeting, Parcells is reported to have told the young man if he played as well as Taylor played he would still have a job.

The NFL Players Association has to quit fighting the suspensions of the criminal component in the league and start insisting ownership and the league begin taking a harder stance on players who belong behind bars and not on the gridiron. Only when the league office, ownership, and the NFL Players Association agree to rid the league of these players will we begin to see significant improvement in the off field behavior of its players. Commissioner Goodell and the owners have to view Ray Rice as more than a sacrificial lamb who will hopefully get fans and the media off their backs. They have to view Rice as the start of a new era in the NFL in which players are no longer rewarded with nice contracts while being allowed to live by a set of rules that the rest of us do not get to live by. Only time will tell if today is the beginning of such a new era or just another attempt by the NFL to present an image that just isn't real.