Roger Goodell was obliged to repeatedly defend his performance as NFL commissioner during a bruising round of questions at his annual pre-Super Bowl press conference.
The league has been rocked by a series of scandals this season, from mishandled investigations into domestic abuse cases through to overturned doping suspensions and allegations that the New England Patriots had cheated by using deflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game. Goodell defined it as a year “of many challenges” but insisted that the league was learning and improving the way it would handle such issues in future.
That assertion was met with scepticism. One reporter informed Goodell quite bluntly that, “many people in America, going through the year that you’ve had, probably would have resigned or been fired”, before asking the commissioner if he could envisage a situation in which either of those things might happen.
“No I can’t,” replied Goodell. “Does that surprise you? Listen, it has been a tough year. It has been a tough year on me personally. It has been a year of humility and learning. We obviously as an organisation have gone through adversity, but more importantly it’s been adversity for me. That is something we take seriously.
“It’s an opportunity for us to get better, it’s an opportunity for our organisation to get better, so we’ve all done lot of soul-searching, starting with yours truly. We have taken action. A lot of the concerns that we had back in August where we didn’t have a policy to address a very complex issue – we didn’t have answers for that. We didn’t fully understand those issues. Well, now we have experts in the field, they’re in our office, they’re helping us understand this.”
Goodell was eager to highlight the changes that had been made, from the drafting of a new personal conduct policy to the consultations with “more than 150 experts” in matters surrounding domestic violence. He also announced that the league was in the process of creating a new position of chief medical officer, in a bid to further their efforts to reduce head injuries in the sport.
But questions continued to be raised regarding his own personal performance. Goodell was asked whether he believed that he deserved to have his pay cut after earning more than $44m in 2013. He gave this query short shrift, saying: “That’s up to the owners. They evaluate my compensation every year. I don’t argue.”
Goodell became testy with some of his interrogators and seemed to snap when asked by CNN’s Rachel Nichols whether the league had a credibility gap when it came to conflicts of interest on matters such as the ball deflation investigation. It was pointed out to the commissioner that although the league had brought in an outside investigator, Ted Wells, to lead the investigation, he was still ultimately being paid by the league, while Goodell, in turn, was being paid by team owners including the Patriots’ Robert Kraft.
“Well, Rachel, I don’t agree a lot of assumptions you make in your question,” said Goodell. “I think we have had people that have had uncompromising integrity … Their integrity is impeccable. These are professionals that bring in outside expertise, outside perspective, and their conclusions are drawn only by the evidence and only by the attempt to identify that truth.”
Such words failed to address the conflict of interest that Nichols had raised, and his sarcastic follow-up was unedifying. “Somebody has to pay them, Rachel. So unless you’re volunteering, which I don’t think you are, we will do that.”
Goodell also had little time for the suggestion from Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman this week that he should make himself available to the media every week, just like the players do. Goodell insisted that he was “available to the media almost every day”, a claim which did not ring true to many reporters who had been thwarted in their attempts to set up interviews with the commissioner in recent years.
Several other topics were discussed over the course of the 45-minute press conference, which Goodell had begun by announcing that the league was moving along with experiments to make the extra point more exciting as well as looking into the possibility of making some penalties reviewable with instant replay. It was indicative of the combative mood of the room that no questions were posed on either of these potentially quite significant developments.
He did offer further details of Wells’s ball deflation investigation, saying: “As you would expect, we take seriously anything that potentially impacts the integrity of the game. We are focusing principally on two questions: Why were some footballs used in the game that were not in compliance with the rules? And was this the result of deliberate action?
“I want to emphasise that we have made no judgments on these points, and we will not compromise the investigation by engaging in speculation. When Ted Wells has completed his investigation and made his determination based on all relevant evidence, we will share his report publicly.”
Other subjects raised included the persistent rumours of the St Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles. On this matter, Goodell was firm, stating that, “We want all of our franchises to stay in their current markets” and insisting that the league was committed to exhausting all avenues to make that happen. He also rejected the notion that the Rams could move without league consent, saying at least one, and likely several, rounds of voting by owners would be required.
