Roger Goodell is not a commissioner drunk with power as he is often portrayed. His draconian punishments are not personal. In private he has shown great empathy for some of the men he has disciplined harshly. But he has one great flaw in how he has run the NFL.
He has never been consistent in handling discipline, handing out the biggest punishments in the highest-profile cases regardless of evidence. For a time this built him a reputation as the law and order commissioner, earning him praise as a man in control of his league. And yet there is a price for deciding discipline based on public relations. You build a legacy without a foundation. Sooner or later everything collapses.
The fall came Thursday when US district court judge Richard Berman vacated Goodell’s four-game suspension of Tom Brady, ruling the league did not give the Patriots quarterback proper rights in the Deflategate saga.
Goodell has never been consistent in his punishments. For nine years, headlines have driven his handling of untidy issues. High-profile arrests have drawn big suspensions. The threat of concussion lawsuits led to huge mid-season changes in league policy and ultimately an outrageously extreme year-long suspension of the New Orleans Saints head coach, Sean Payton, over a locker room bounty program. Eventually Goodell was going to push himself into a place where a punishment went too far.
It is ridiculous to suspend a player four games for suspicion of asking equipment men to squeeze a bit of air from the balls in order to get a better grip. If Brady was, say, Alex Smith and the game in question wasn’t the AFC Championship, Brady and the Patriots would be looking at a fine and a reprimand. This is how the league has handled other cases involving doctored balls.
But Goodell had set too big a precedent in his handling of cases like the Saints. He had no choice to pursue Brady as if the quarterback was pumping himself with steroids in the New England locker room. The fact Brady’s punishment never fit the crime was no longer the issue. Goodell couldn’t hit Payton hard and then come soft on Brady.
Sports commissioners have always had a unique omnipotence dating back to baseball’s Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s lifetime ban of Shoeless Joe Jackson for throwing the 1919 World Series. Goodell was praised early in his tenure for suspending Pacman Jones for being involved in a number of off-field incidents. At the time, several people involved in the league’s operations believed player misbehavior was the NFL’s top issue. They felt the images of players being arrested were scaring away corporate sponsors.
After the Jones suspension, the media heralded Goodell as the commissioner unafraid to hand out harsh punishments. Even the Payton suspension was cheered by many league observers who said Goodell had established himself as a strong leader who demanded the truth when players or coaches were asked about misdeeds.
The headlines have taken their toll now. Berman’s decision ripped the NFL for applying the standard of a steroid cheat on Brady for possibly asking the balls be deflated.
“The court finds that no player alleged or found to have had a general awareness of the inappropriate ball deflation activities or others who allegedly schemed with others to let air out of footballs in a championship game and also had not cooperated in an ensuing investigation, reasonably could be on notice that their discipline would (or could) be the same as applied to a player who violated the NFL policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances,” Berman wrote.
In writing this the judge wiped away Goodell’s policy of discipline by public relations. He said there needs to be consistency in how the commissioner operates. Random, unrelated standards can’t be used in a case simply because the headlines are bigger. Brady can’t be suspended four games for suspicion of ball deflation simply because Pacman Jones was suspended a year for making it rain in a Vegas club or Payton a season for the Saints bounty program.
Goodell’s commissionership changed on Thursday. Even if the NFL prevails in a higher court, Berman’s ruling means Goodell will hesitate before dropping heavy suspensions to appease a news cycle. Punishment will have to fit the infraction not the crawl on the bottom of a television screen
The NFL’s owners have kept Goodell as commissioner in part because he has made them all far more rich than when he took over and in part because advertisers like the idea of a man who will drop the hammer on bad behavior. He probably survives Thursday’s court loss. But he will be a different commissioner now. Investigations will no longer consist of watching TV to see what stories everyone is talking about the most.
