Tag Archives: Roger Goodell

Sep 29 2017

Audible

 

It’s not about the players. It’s not about the protests. It’s about the NFL.

The Roger Goodell NFL has been anything but glorious. For all his assurances of defending the shield, the self-righteous proclamation of the Commissioner has yielded nothing less than the opposite. The NFL shield has now become a tattered, tainted symbol of lawlessness, disrespect, and selfish hypocrisy.

Consider the pattern that has brought the nation to at least a momentary disgust with the most dominant professional sport in the United States. Goodell’s first “defense of the shield” was to ban happy dance celebrations in the end zone. Randy Moss could no longer “moon” Packers fans in the end zone.

Who can forget the improper spinning of the football? This was also regulated. Goodell was determined to make sure that football didn’t spin out of control. (I just couldn’t help myself.)

Then came the minuscule suspension for a player beating his pregnant girlfriend senseless in an elevator. Only after being publicly taken to task by Maine Governor Paul LePage, did the NFL decide to administer a more appropriate suspension. The NFL continues to tolerate repeated domestic violence within it’s ranks.

But then the NFL decided to morph into a political entity. When the sovereign State of Georgia passed legislation to protect the Free Speech and Religious Freedom rights of ministers to refuse to perform gay marriages, the NFL threatened to remove the Super Bowl from their State. In remarkable display of cowardice the Governor of Georgia vetoed the bill, effectively knuckling under to the NFL.

Now the new bully of political spectrum was feeling very full of themselves. They banned socks and shoes that had improper support of the 9-11 tragedy. They banned the support of fallen police officers on NFL helmets. They mocked Christian players for kneeling before the game prayer.

Until now. Now, it works for them. Kneeling now is another way the NFL can throw it’s weight around and tell the fans it doesn’t give a rat’s hairy hindquarters what they think; in fact, the NFL thinks that protesting fans and the President of the United States need to show the NFL, the “proper respect”, Goodell’s own words.

The NFL calls an audible on what expression is allowed and what is not because they have very little to fear in the form of reprisal in the Free Market. Given non-profit status by the Federal Government, with rabid fans who are so addicted to the game they will ignore any disgusting behavior just so they can have their Sunday fix, and a populace whose value system is somewhere between nada and nil, the NFL has very little reason to behave itself and the more reason to throw it’s shoulders at it’s viewers. They will sit there, take it,and wait with bated breath for the next game.

Jul 29 2015

The Fiction We’ve Become

The ruling has come down on the Tom Brady suspension and, no surprise; the NFL is trying to save face by keeping the suspension in place. The so-called “save the integrity of the game” ruling is nothing more than a sham to cover the lack of integrity repeatedly exhibited by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Remember, this is the man who tried to let Ray Rice, running back for the Baltimore Ravens, off with a mere slap on the wrist for the crime of beating his pregnant fiancée senseless in plain sight of a video camera. Goodell changed his ruling to fit the crime only after a major outcry, starting with a scathing public renunciation from Governor Paul LePage, created a messy PR disaster for the Commissioner.

Ah yes, Roger Goodell, such a shining example of conviction for the youth of our Nation. For all his bluster about defending the integrity of the game, no one individual has done more to damage the integrity of the NFL than Roger Goodell. Still, he knows how to make a stand on air pressure, because we all know ball pressure is far more important that pregnant women…right??

And the Wells Report was so definitive about Brady’s ba….I mean, air pressure. Mr. Wells stated emphatically that he was pretty sure that probably Tom Brady maybe knew about the possibility that somebody somewhere was doing something that might be bad without any real proof of how the bad thing was done but everyone knows that Brady knows so we know that he most likely did something that we are not sure of… Doesn’t that just make you want to shout Truth, Justice, and the American Way? Really? Because I don’t!

But this is where we are as a society. We have become a people who would rather make decisions based upon what we want truth to be rather than discover what truth is. Brady’s…air pressure aside, the NFL is determined to destroy the legacy of the greatest quarterback who has ever played the game because he wins too much, plays for a coach who pushes the limits in all directions to find every edge to win, and they both don’t give a rat’s diseased riddled hindquarters what the NFL thinks of them.

Still, we love fiction over fact. For years we’ve exhorted children to believe in themselves. We’ve preached the virtues of being happy and validated in their own unique self. There’s no one like them…right? Unless you are superstar Olympic athlete who’s decided he’s not happy with who he is and wants his he to be she or a white female whose not happy that she is white and wants to be black, now that’s courageous according to the new world view.

Imagine all the children we’ve been teaching to “be happy with who they are” that must now face a new dilemma in their young minds, as if they needed a new dilemma, but here it is. Should I be happy with who I am or courageously unhappy with who I am? My, the contortions and convolutions we will go through as a nation not to face the truth.

Even our Supreme Court has contorted and twisted itself so that it might conjure a “right” that does not exist. In order to render a decision they deemed satisfactory to the gay community, the Justices of the Supreme Court have trampled State Sovereignty, Religious Liberty, and the Freedom of Speech, clearly defined in the Constitution, to create a “right” not clearly defined in the Constitution. If history is a lesson, those who make a decision based upon “Well everybody knows its true” more often than not end up in the category of “My God, what have we done?”