It's Official: Roger Goodell is Out of Control!

Roger Goodell, the football king of the world. Photo: The Michigan Review.

December 22, 2016
Peter Solari, Contributing Editor  Follow @4PeteSakeNY
 

Over the past week, I've written extensively about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's authoritarian overreach and uneven hand of justice. This isn't a novel idea, of course. Goodell's dictatorial style has been covered by sports reporters throughout the country, including here, here, here, here and here. And if you're interested in Goodell's rocky relationship with the truth, you can read more about that here and here.

Needless to say, Commissioner Goodell is a snake! However, if you still had any doubts about that, they all should have been alleviated over the past three weeks. 

On Tuesday, the league hit the Giants with a $150,000 fine, Head Coach Ben McAdoo with an $50,000 fine, and moved the team's 2017 4th-round draft pick to the back of the round, behind any compensatory picks, for New York's use of two-way radios after their headsets failed in a week 14 game against the Dallas Cowboys on December 11th.

Let's just get one thing out in the open here: The Giants are guilty of an infraction and the NFL has every right to investigate it. And the fines for the organization and the coach are appropriate punishments for the crime committed. The relocation of the the team's draft pick, on the other hand, is outrageous! 

While the Giants did violate NFL rules, their actions amount to one of the most insignificant violations possible. The league's own investigation determined that New York only used the walkie-talkies during one drive in the fourth quarter, that lasted only five plays, and ended with the Cowboys intercepting an Eli Manning pass that was intended for Victor Cruz. With this in mind, it would be preposterous to argue that the Giants were the benefactors of some unfair advantage in their 10-7 win over Dallas. And if we're being entirely honest, we can admit that even if said drive had ended in a New York touchdown, a logical argument to that effect still couldn't be made, because not only is the rule, in and of itself, petty and irrelevant (it exists solely so that communication between the quarterback and sideline is cut-off when the play clock gets down to 15 seconds), but Manning is the one who adjusts his offense at the line of scrimmage, not the coaches. It's been that way for the majority of his 13-year career, and it didn't just change when the rookie head coach, who has only been with the organization three seasons, rolled into town. Of course, not everybody agrees with this.

The NFL fined Giants coach Ben McAdoo $50,000 for using a two-radio to communicate with his quarterback on the field in a December 11th game against the Dallas Cowboys. Photo: Yahoo!

Former Buccaneers and Colts coach, and Pro Football Hall-of-Famer, Tony Dungy has called this issue, "serious," and urged the league to come down hard on the Giants (as if they needed any motivation to do so), and send a message to the rest of the league. Dungy didn't, however, explain what made this such a "serious" issue, or why it was so important for the commissioner to drop the hammer. Dungy is an intelligent man, but I think even he would have a difficult time trying to expand on this with a straight face. 

More interestingly, Eric Edholm wrote a piece for Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday, characterizing the Giants' penalties for "Walkie-Talkie Gate" as "a slap on the wrist." Edholm attempted to show examples from the past, in which the league harshly punished teams and players, for infractions that were seemingly similar to the Giants' use of walkie-talkies. Most of them didn't hold water, except for the incident involving former-Cleveland Browns general manager Ray Farmer, who was disciplined in 2015 for illegal contact with his team's sideline during game-play.

Farmer was suspended for the first four games of the 2015 season, and the Browns were fined $250,000 when it was discovered that Farmer used his cell phone to text team personnel on the sideline during games, which also constitutes a violation of the NFL's electronic device protocol. On the surface, "Walkie-Talkie Gate" and "Textgate" may seem comparable, but it's not quite apples-to-apples. 

While it's true Farmer himself paid a hefty price for breaking the rules, the Browns were essentially unaffected. $250,000 is chump change for a franchise worth $1 billion, and trying to locate anyone who even noticed Farmer's absence would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Most importantly, though, the Browns' on-field product wasn't touched. There were rumors that the NFL would strip Cleveland a draft pick, but when all was said and done, they didn't, and I'd like to believe that happened because there was no way for the league to justify such consequences, for such a minor infraction. Regardless of why it happened, there's little doubt that Goodell's stopping short of setting the Cleveland franchise back even further than they already were, is why this incident has gone largely unremembered by the casual football fan. 

The Giants, on the other hand, could fall anywhere from 5-12 spots in the upcoming draft, as things presently stand. Considering the NFL Draft is the lifeblood of any successful organization, New York's on-field product will almost certainly be tainted, and that's a pretty hefty price. But at the end of the day, the rules are in place and every team/player must abide by them. And those who fail to do so, will be punished, right? Well, not so much in Goodell's NFL.

The real problem with Commissioner Goodell isn't that he gets off on coming down on his players. Don't get me wrong, it's a problem, but during Goodell's decade-plus reign over the NFL, it's become the new normal, and most of us don't even flinch when it happens, anymore. The real problem with Goodell the tyrant, is the uneven manner in which he disperses discipline.

Photo: QuickMeme

It's no secret that Goodell thrives on his reputation as a tough disciplinarian, and there are countless examples of this. But then there are also those times when violations occur, and the commissioner's response is to sit on his thumbs and let the offending parties skate by unscathed.

Let's take a trip down memory lane to the end of the 2014 season and the subsequent 18 months, known to football fans worldwide as "Deflategate."

When the dust had finally settled, Goodell got his way. Even though the NFL's own investigation determined that none of the allegations against the Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady could be proven, the team was fined, stripped of a couple of draft picks, and Brady was suspended for four games. But they're not the only ones who paid a steep price. In July, I wrote that Goodell's actions in this case should concern fans of all teams, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. 

"Deflategate" made two things abundantly clear. 1) Any player who inflates/deflates footballs to a level outside of league specifications, is cheating the game in one of the worst ways imaginable, and 2) Roger Goodell is unilaterally free to discipline any player, for any infraction, whether or not any evidence actually exists. 

Now let's fast forward to December 4th of this year, and a week 13 matchup between the Giants and Steelers in Pittsburgh. During that game, New York tested the PSI in two of the footballs their defense recovered, and discovered they were under-inflated. The Giants alerted the league to this revelation, and asked them to look into, but Goodell wanted no part of it, because, all of a sudden, deflated balls aren't nearly as big of a problem, as Goodell himself led us to believe. 

The league released a statement saying New York had never filed a formal complaint with them, and for that reason, there would be no investigation. But that's a little odd, no? When Brady and the Patriots allegedly did the same thing, they were likened to Barry Bonds using performance enhancing drugs to break Hank Aaron's home run record. So if the crime is so egregious, should the formality of the complaint matter one iota? Of course not!

The Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger (L) and the Patriots' Tom Brady. Both of these quarterbacks have been accused of using under-inflated footballs, but the NFL only investigated one of them. Photo: ESPN

What makes this even more perplexing, is a December 16 report from ESPN's Jordan Raanan, stating that Dallas never filed a formal complaint against the Giants for the walkie-talkie incident, either, which all but eviscerates Goodell's reasoning for not investigating Pittsburgh. But the NFL just swept all of this  under the rug, and hoped nobody was paying attention. One week later, the Giants faced the Cowboys, and "Walkie-Talkie Gate" unfolded. 

Now let's fast forward another seven days to this past Sunday, and a game between the Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In the second quarter, Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott scored a touchdown and celebrated an enlarged red Salvation Army kettle, that we're all prone to seeing this time of year. This is another football faux pas, and another stupid one at that. Players aren't permitted to use "props" in end zone celebrations, so Dallas was assessed a 15-yard penalty, and most expected Elliott would be hit with a fine. But on Monday, the NFL inexplicably announced that Elliott wouldn't be fined, which prompted Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr., a favorite target of Goodell's gestapo, to tweet the following:

The Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. was amused by Ezekiel Elliott's Houdini-like escape from a justified fine. Photo: Twitter

Beckham isn't wrong. Over the years, we've witnessed countless players fined for celebrating with props, and every single one of them was a sign of overreach from the NFL. But I can't recall anyone getting off scot-free, certainly not without as much as a reason why. That is, of course, until now.

The Cowboys' Ezekiel Elliott celebrates his 2nd quarter touchdown inside of an oversized Salvation Army kettle, in a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday night. Photo: ABC News

There had been some speculation that the reason Elliott wasn't fined, was that his celebration promoted a good cause (See: Ezekiel Elliott's Jump into Red Kettle Benefits Salvation Army). That's a nice illusion to have during the holidays, but that's all it is; an illusion. Beckham set that theory up in flames on Wednesday when he revealed the league fined him $18,000 for wearing cleats that honored Turner Sports NBA sideline reporter Craig Sager, who passed away last week after a long battle with leukemia. The cleats were auctioned off with the proceeds going to cancer research. Sounds like a pretty worthy cause, wouldn't you say?

Odell Beckham Jr. wore cleats honoring Turner Sports NBA sideline reporter Craig Sager, who passed away on December 15. Photo: ESPN

This made me laugh when I first read it because after it was surmised that Elliott avoided a fine by helping a charity, I asked my Facebook followers if they believed Goodell would allow players to alter their uniforms or wear specialty cleats for a good cause. I got my answer.

Now take a quick glance back at Commissioner Goodell's past four weeks and keep in mind what you learned from the Patriots and Deflategate. Now ask yourself, is it any wonder why players and fans across the NFL despise this regime?

Roger Goodell is out of control! He's declared himself the "Football King of the World" and  that's not likely to change any time soon, so get used to it.

History will remember Roger Goodell as the man who transpired the NFL from the National Football League, to the No Fun League.