A Good Trade

The NFL is the most popular professional sport in the country. It's so far ahead of the rest that a regular season NFL game draws more viewers than a World Series game. That would have been inconceivable a couple of decades ago. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was paid over $100 million from 2008-12. With that sort of compensation from the NFL owners one would think that he's the reason for this wild popularity. He isn't. Far from it. The popularity of the NFL is at such a high in spite of the commissioner. It's a shame really. The NFL is at the top of the professional sports food chain in this country and it's being led by perhaps the worst executive in professional sports. The NFL should have the best commissioner. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver should be NFL Commissioner. The NFL should trade Goodell for Silver. That would be a good trade. For the NFL. It would be a terrible trade for the NBA. The NFL would probably have to throw in Harold Henderson(Roger will need a friend), Adolpho Birch, Greg Aiello, a bunch of cash, and a few more executives to be named later to make it happen. The NFL usually gets what it wants so they can make this work.

The NFL has been blessed with tremendous leadership throughout it's history. Joe Carr, Bert Bell, Pete Rozelle, and Paul Tagliabue all seemed to have the qualities that the league needed most during their times. Carr had football and administrative experience before the NFL was even a thing. His stability and passion guided the new league through the pot-hole riddled 1920s and '30s. Bell was a football man first. His passion for and knowledge of the game set the league up for the popularity explosion that was to come. No Carr and Bell and we probably have no NFL. Rozelle was a public relations savant. He was the perfect man to package and market the NFL. If Taglaibue did anything right it was the respect he showed and had with the players and their union. Now we have Goodell. Great. The players will always be the draw of sports but the rocky ground that the NFL is walking now is a good indication that the leadership at the top can makes the whole picture better. A little honesty and consistency goes a long way and Goodell has provided no honesty and very little consistency. He is currently making everything worse. Neither the public nor the players trust him. Initially, I thought that Roger Goodell was a fine choice as NFL Commissioner. He struck me as a commissioner that would view the game through the eyes of a fan. He often admitted as much. In every speaking opportunity he throws in a few "it's what the fans want." I believed those words for most of his eight years running the league. Perhaps I believed him simply because I wanted to believe him. I've come to realize that Roger Goodell doesn't give a shit about the fans. He certainly doesn't give a shit about the players. It's a shame really as those two groups are probably the two groups that he really should be working the hardest to keep happy. Instead, he's only concerned with making the owners more money. I suppose that's what the owners expect and he's greatly overpaid to do but how much is enough? The NFL gains new fans every day. There are more fantasy football participants each year. Each season the excitement for the league is at an all-time high. Interest in the NFL will grow every year if Goodell did nothing at all. With his current moves in mind, the NFL might grow even more if Goodell did nothing at all. If he took a real long nap. A decades long nap. He wants an 18-game season. He says that the fans want it. An 18-game season isn't for the fans. It absolutely isn't for the players. An 18-game season would put 32 more game receipts into the owners' coffers. Goodell says that most of what he does is for the fans. It's not. A team in London? For the owners. Expanded playoffs? For the owners. Thursday games? Owners. Goodell talks of a quest to make the game safer for the players. Few of his actions back those words. The players are too replaceable to truly worry about their welfare. None of this should really come as a surprise. None of the men that built the NFL and led the NFL really cared too much about the players. They were a disposable commodity. They used them until they couldn't use them anymore. There were always more players to take their place. At least we could feel fairly confident that the words spoken by Carr, Bell, Rozelle, and Tagliabue were the truth. They were as honest as they could be with the players and the public. I no longer believe a single word spoken by Roger Goodell. His disciplinary actions with the players are arbitrary and random. It's is as if he has a dart board in his office and flings a dart to determine a punishment. He consults "experts" to come up with a comprehensive Player Conduct Policy yet doesn't think to consult the NFLPA. Simple common courtesy would prompt a fair man to involve the people impacted by a decision. The NFLPA deserved that courtesy. I miss the days when I could trust the person that is guiding the league that I love. I never would have imagined that the NFL could be in danger. I have that fear now. The USFL's lawsuit in the 1980s threw a serious scare into the NFL. The labor issues of the 1970s and '80s were more annoying than anything else. The labor discussions that will take place at the end of the current CBA may turn into a war. Something far worse than the five-month battle that took place in 2011. The players do not trust Goodell and I don't blame them. The NFL might not survive another round of labor negotiations that involves Roger Goodell. Adam Silver has been the NBA Commissioner for less than a year. In that time he's spoken with honesty more often than Goodell has in eight years. Silver for Goodell? That would be a very good trade.