National Football League
It's time to cut Goodell a break
National Football League

It's time to cut Goodell a break

Published Jul. 26, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

The NFL wants you to know it is sorry. Really, really sorry. Couldn’t be any sorrier for the 19-week lockout that deprived us of football during a time of year when we never have football.

After the hugs and smiles yesterday upon completion of a new, 10-year collective bargaining agreement, it was an endless stream of apologies outside the NFL Players Association headquarters in Washington D.C., which brought to mind two questions:

1) With no regular-season games being missed, what exactly were they apologizing for?

2) When does Roger Goodell get his?

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Look, I won’t pretend to feel sorry for a guy who draws a $10 million annual salary to be the chief executive of America’s most popular professional sports league, and neither should you nor any of the players who have spent the summer seething — publicly and privately — about the NFL commissioner.

But Goodell isn’t merely disliked, he’s hated. A phenomenon that started long before the lockout began in March, but grew to ridiculous proportions this summer.

When 400 fans couldn’t get into the Super Bowl because some temporary seats were deemed unsafe? It was Goodell who had to face a national media filled with righteous anger. When the league held the draft in April at the height of lockout contentiousness? It was Goodell who had to hear vicious boos every time he stepped on stage. And when rank-and-file players started venting about the labor negotiations? It was Goodell who seemed to be the sole target of their frustrations.

In April, Seahawks offensive lineman Chester Pitts called Goodell “a fraud” on Seattle radio. Roddy White, a Falcons receiver, called Goodell’s reign “a dictatorship” on ESPN’s nationally syndicated “Mike & Mike” show.

And they were the nice ones.

To get a sense of how much NFL players dislike Goodell, all you had to do was look at this month’s Men’s Journal, where Steelers linebacker James Harrison called him a “crook” and a “devil.”

Those kinds of personal attacks were always irrational. But now? They’re just insane.

For all the complaining about Goodell and his stewardship of the NFL, look what we have today. Labor peace for the next decade. A new CBA that slightly increased the percentage of revenue for the owners but gave the players all kinds of things they wanted including more money for veterans, an increase in the “floor” that teams must spend on player salaries, a shorter offseason training program, more off-days during bye weeks and fewer practices in full pads.

The 18-game regular season, which players vehemently opposed, was tabled for at least two years. All kinds of other financial bogeymen that players denounced never showed up. The players got a good deal, and so did the fans.

But the line of people waiting to apologize to Goodell over the next few weeks for making him the villain of this lockout will surely be a short one.

Look, I can sort of get why players don’t like Goodell. He’s tough on discipline for guys who get in legal trouble, and he’s used the threat of large fines to discourage dangerous hits. It was much easier for the players to make him the bad guy than the owners who employ him (and them).

But making Goodell into a pariah for protecting the best interests of the league is just as silly as disliking him for his country-club good looks or his silver-spoon upbringing as the son of a U.S. senator.

Here are the facts: Since Goodell became commissioner in 2006, the NFL’s revenues have grown from $6 billion to $9 billion despite less-than-ideal economic conditions. Television viewership of the regular season — the regular season! — is up by 3.5 million per game. Eight different teams have played in the five Super Bowls during Goodell’s reign. And now, we are guaranteed no more lockouts until at least 2021.

Goodell, of course, doesn’t deserve sole credit for the NFL’s massive success, and he hasn’t been free of missteps. (His op-ed in the Wall Street Journal prior to the draft, in particular, was a preposterous piece of propaganda and did little to enhance his reputation.)

But more often than not, Goodell does the right thing — whether it was taking a 20 percent pay cut when the NFL laid off a slew of employees in 2009 or cutting his own salary to $1 during the lockout. It’s not exactly a vow of poverty, but there have been far emptier gestures perpetrated on sports fans over the years.

And yet after all the abuse he’s taken during his tenure, there was Goodell yesterday, apologizing for a lockout that had few real-world consequences for fans.

“We are sorry for the frustration we put them through over the last six months,” he said.

Goodell isn’t perfect, but his league is as close to it as anything we’ve ever seen in pro sports and remains that way even after the last few months. Goodell won’t ask for an apology, but if anyone deserved one yesterday, it was him.

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