Lets start out with an absolutely essential understanding if we’re going to proceed from here. If we cannot agree upon this point, please just stop reading now, as we’ll likely never agree upon anything.
Jerry Jones has absolutely no integrity.
I need only refer back to the most recent scandal that had his stamp of approval, when 2 domestic abusers ago, he proclaimed that domestic abusers are not welcome in Dallas, he has a zero tolerance policy, and he promptly put Greg Hardy on the field. So on this point, we can not disagree. I could certainly go on and on, and an article about his lack of integrity could be great fun, but I digress.
Jerruh’s lack of integrity interestingly appears to have landed him on the right side of the argument for once. No, I do not mean that I think Zeke Eliott is his latest example of a good and honest Cowboy that the NFL has wrongfully accused of domestic violence. There’s a special place in Hell for men that abuse women, and Zeke along with a couple other Cowboys are on the fast track with Jerry’s blessing. However, because Jerry is an idiot (how he became a billionaire absolutely baffles me) and can’t see anything other than the six inches in front of his face, he has suddenly come to the conclusion that overall, Goodell is bad for the game.
Now that Goodell has in Jerry’s opinion, railroaded yet another player, one that is on Jerry’s team as opposed to someone else’s, Goodell is suddenly a cancer to the league, is the source of all its problems, and must go. NOW. Prior to Zeke getting busted, er, wrongfully accused, ole Roger was in line for a healthy extension in Jerry’s eyes. Jerry even voted in favor of it only a few months back.
At this moment, I do suspect that Goodell’s time has come. Obviously the players think he must go. But, even from the perspective of the owners, Goodell has done absolutely nothing for them since completely fleecing the players in the last labor agreement. But this is the NFL, and what have you done for me lately? Unfortunately for the owners, that fleecing is only beneficial to the owners if the revenue is flowing in. But, ratings are down, very down, and therefore revenue will soon follow if it hasn’t yet. For this, Goodell is quite responsible. Goodell’s job is to produce and package his product in order to successfully take the biggest market share possible and therefore maximize the desire of advertisers and consumers to gleefully hand the owners fistfuls of cash. The minimum job you could demand of Goodell would be that he at least maintain status quo in ratings and revenue. Unfortunately though, at this moment in Goodell’s tenure, you can really say only 2 things.
1. He greatly enhanced the slice of the pie that the owners will
receive from annual revenue. Fantastic to owners on its face.
2. The pie itself is shrinking before our eyes. That is bad for
players, bad for owners, and bad for fans.
Goodell is not expanding or even maintaining his product’s success. If anything, his product is currently in a state of rapid decline. Blame it on the kneeling players if you like(I do know people that are boycotting). Blame it on labor unrest(I personally never forgave baseball from the 1994 strike). Blame it on oversaturation. I for one think Thursdays should be reserved for college, and at my age I can pretty much guarantee that I will NEVER, EVER, watch a game on Twitter unless it’s the only place the Packers are on, and I certainly will never think that the Packers or any other team playing in London is a positive development. Blame it on what you like. It is Goodell’s responsibility to enhance and sell the product, and he is failing at the moment. Of course, when put to a vote, Jerry voted in favor of Goodell’s leadership under these very circumstances. Until, that is, heavy handed discipline had an impact on the Cowboys. Now Goodell is a pariah.
I can’t personally say that the floundering of ratings is here to stay, or if the NFL had become so big that it needed to come back to earth. Perhaps Goodell can lead them back to their prior levels of popularity and prosperity, and perhaps the recent freefall is not actually his fault. At this moment though, I’m very surprised that Jerry is the only person suggesting that a change in leadership is necessary, and that the motivating reason isn’t overall money; instead the reason is that yet another of his players with felonious tendencies is unavailable for six weeks.
The best I can say for Goodell from the owner’s perspective though, is he really took the players to the woodshed in that last labor agreement, and he’s been doing a fantastic job of setting them up for the next round. But, his day to day management of issues and overall success are certainly questionable. Even though he absolutely crushed the players in the last round, and has the NFL in position to finish the job and absolutely annihilate them in the next negotiation, it won’t do the owners any good whatsoever if nobody is watching. And on a day to day basis, making sure the whole world is watching is his absolute number one priority. In that, his most important task, he is currently failing in spectacular fashion.
Agree. I think there is a tough cycle at work here – similar to college but on a much broader scale. Players are here for a decade, most of them for less than a season. Owners, on the other hand are here for life.
That means when you negotiate a CBA, owners are looking long term and players are looking micro term. So if players can get an extra 1% this year (bemefitting all of them, especially if they won’t be here next year), they’ll take in exchange for things like unlimited commissioner power (which will probably only impact a relative handful of them).
Unless they band together and risk a year of income (in a profession that can have careers a lot shorter than that) to make things “right,” this will always be the way it is.
Of course, that won’t stop players from signing up for a bad deal and then complaining about it while making very ridiculous similes.
And now Zeke has dropped his appeal. I thought this was the best shot at winning an appeal so far in all of these discipline cases. How can you claim there was any due process whatsoever in determining whether to impose discipline and how much, when the NFL’s own investigator says the accuser has significant flaws in her story, and the person judging the matter isn’t informed of his own investigator’s concerns, and then Zeke is flat out denied the chance to cross examine his accuser at the original hearing and the appeal?
I thought the NFLPA FINALLY had a chance to bring a legit issue to an appeals court, and Zeke backs out? I’m thinking the NFL has some new evidence, or a new incident and explained to him that if he continues with this appeal, they’ll make the new evidence public, or they’ll start new disciplinary proceedings on the new allegation….and then he cold miss another 6 games or more if its another domestic violence situation…..
Why else does the NFLPA just back out when you finally have an issue that you can beat the NFL on? And why does Zeke agree to back down, so he can sit at home and miss 6 paychecks, if they have nothing on him? Does he have something better to do than fight to get back on the field? No way this ‘innocent’ man just walks away and takes the punishment for a crime he did not commit. I know there’s MUCH more to this, because I finally thought Zeke and the NFLPA could actually win on a legit issue. It would prove the point they’ve been trying to make for years. It would make the NFL look not only stupid, but unfair and downright vindictive. This was a PR gift, handed to them on a silver platter, and they walked away. But no, this IS NOT an admission of guilt.
I don’t know the legal implications, but if it’s handed to them on a platter, but it’s hard, then I’m not surprised they dropped it.
And just because he’s guilty doesn’t mean he’s going to admit it!