National Football League

NFL Owners Must Reconsider Commissioner's Role

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Following another poorly-handled domestic violence case by the NFL, it’s time owners reconsider the commissioner’s role in the league

The vast majority of us have serious concerns with how the NFL mishandles domestic violence cases, potential PED usage, and investigations into equipment tampering. The bedrock of the NFL’s cover-ups and botched investigations lies in a dynamic that isn’t examined frequently enough.

When TMZ let the whole world know exactly what happened in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino, none of us could believe how Ray Rice escaped with just a two-game suspension. Players like Wes Welker and Reshad Jones were suspended for four games for substance abuse, and yet the league only suspended Rice two games for punching his then-fiancee.

To be somewhat fair to the NFL, they did enact harsher laws against domestic violence before the video was released. Because, believe it or not, many people in the general public didn’t need the video evidence to take domestic violence seriously as an issue.

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However, this isn’t about what should be an appropriate punishment for domestic violence. No, it’s about the cover-up that took place, because the NFL reportedly knew about the video in April 2014. TMZ didn’t release the video until September. And the NFL didn’t suspend Rice until July.

Why would the NFL ignore what Rice did and try to cover up a disgusting act of violence? On a moral level, what they did was reprehensible and indefensible. But even if you want to look at the Ray Rice situation from the perspective of a cold and calculating business executive, you would also come to the conclusion that this was a stupid mistake. Beyond the public outrage and the alienation that female fans felt, the NFL’s biggest sponsors weren’t too happy about all this.

You would think that the NFL learned their lesson. But everything about the Josh Brown case screams that things haven’t changed.

In May 2015, New York Giants kicker Josh Brown was arrested for fourth-degree domestic violence, and below is some more information about what that specifically means (via Beckwith DV Law):

“Domestic Violence Assault in the 4th degree charges are filed when there are allegations of a minor injury or no injury at all. For example, an allegation of unwanted touching would be enough physical contact for an arrest to be made. The law states that the contact must be considered offensive by a reasonable person. DV Assault 4 is a gross misdemeanor and a conviction can result in up to 364 days of jail time, loss of gun rights, and a $5,000 fine.”

The NFL would suspend Brown for just one game in the 2016 season, even though they had said precisely a year ago that the minimum suspension for domestic violence would be six games.

Many fans were upset about this, but this case didn’t blow up until NJ Advanced Media obtained documents from the King County Sheriff’s office that included journal entries Brown wrote in therapy sessions. In them, he detailed a pattern of abusive behavior towards his ex-wife.

It’s hard to believe that the Giants were unaware that his 2015 arrest was not an isolated incident. For starters, Giants co-owner John Mara told WFAN’s Mike Francesca that Brown admitted to the team that he “abused his wife in the past.” Additionally, Brown tried to attack his wife at the 2016 Pro Bowl, which led to the NFL moving his wife and children to a different room.

Yet, about seven months later, the NFL would only suspend him for one game, even though he was arrested for domestic violence and attempted to assault his wife at the Pro Bowl.

So far, Giants players have supported Brown and I’m sure there are some people who put weight into these comments. Brown was molested as a young child and that may cause some to feel bad for him. However, it’s hard to feel bad for someone who signed a two-year, $4 million contract with $1 million in guarantees (and still gets paid on the commissioner’s exempt list) after all of this happened (contract signed in April 2016).

At this point, I’m not interested in personal details, or in debating whether or not Rice and Brown are good people. I don’t have that kind of information and that kind of information is not important when handing down punishments. That kind of information also doesn’t explain why both Brown and Rice almost got away with their actions. And, sadly, I have a feeling other players have been more fortunate in that regard. Just look at NFL icon Larry Fitzgerald.

Does The NFL Have An Incentive To Hide Domestic Violence?

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin is one of the most recognizable superstars in the history of the WWE, and the rebellious, beer-guzzling wrestler of “3:16” fame remains one of the biggest fan favorites in the history of the sports entertainment company.

In 2012, Austin’s was arrested for beating his then-wife Debra Marshall, who claimed that Austin had assaulted her multiple times while they were together.

She also had this to say in an interview with FOX News’s Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes:

“No, they’re not going to rat on the top money-maker in wrestling. And everyone else knew this was going on, but no one’s going to stop it, because Steve would make millions of dollars for Vince.”

Austin was a huge moneymaker for the WWF, because he was arguably their top superstar. Whereas the NFL hasn’t missed a beat since Rice left the league, and Brown is a lowly kicker who can be replaced easily. He doesn’t move the meter, and I bet many people in the league offices didn’t know who he was.

The NFL is a team-based, global brand that owns the most popular sports product in the country. They would stand to lose more from having a cover-up exposed than they would from losing Rice and Brown. Seeing how little the NFL cares about player safety of non-stars, it’s hard to see why the NFL would suddenly care about staking their reputation for two minnows.

Sep 24, 2015; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; NFL commissioner Roger Goodell (left) talks with New York Giants co-owner John Mara on the field before a game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

It’s About The Owners, Not The Commissioner

Whenever the NFL drops the ball, public outcry is directed towards the commissioner. It’s been refreshing to see more and more people blaming the team now that we know more about the pattern of Brown’s criminal behavior, but we still need more people to realize that the owners deserve the brunt of the blame.

Roger Goodell made $32 million in 2015, but 17 of the 32 people who cut his checks have net worths in the billions.

The owners are the ones who vote for Goodell and determine his salary every year. I don’t know what conversations occur in the NFL’s back-channels, but each individual owner holds plenty of power over Goodell. Since they elect him and pay him, they can easily use him to their advantage. Players like Rice and Brown mean little to the league, but they help teams like the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants win games and strengthen their brand. This brand would be hurt if Rice or Brown were suspended for domestic violence, so they would do anything to cover it up. We saw both the Giants and Ravens do exactly that.

This isn’t to absolve Goodell of any moral blame, but it is to say that the situation he finds himself in isn’t conducive to making sound, moral decisions — let alone decisions that are best for the league. It seems like Goodell can be coerced into making decisions that benefit just one owner/team, and that’s a huge problem.

The NFL owners scored a huge victory over the players in the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement. Many of the qualms associated with the new CBA are directed towards Goodell’s gross accumulation of power — and this is power he has abused. Whether it’s the unscientific witch-hunt that was #Deflategate or the bullying of players mentioned in Al Jazeera’s report on performance-enhancing drugs, the commissioner wields incredible power over the players.

Even though it is the commissioner abusing this power, remember who gave that power to him in the first place. Remember that the CBA is an agreement between the NFLPA and the owners (Wikipedia knows), because the NFL commissioner is just the executive, elected, figurehead arm of the 32 owners. If he has power over the players, the NFL has power over the players. Why? Because the owners have power over him.

I mean, who else told Goodell to embark on the #DeflateGate journey? It was probably the owners of other AFC teams who wanted to knock the New England Patriots down a peg. Note that the only reason why the league was able to suspend Tom Brady was because of the massive amounts of power afforded to him by the CBA. In that respect, you could see #DeflateGate as a sinister ploy from the NFL owners to validate the power they have over players by going after the NFL’s most distinguishable star.

Here’s one last point about the problem. If the NFL owners were upset with how Goodell handled these situations, wouldn’t they have removed him or publicly denounced his fumbling of these incidents? They don’t, because they all want him to bail their team out if something happens with one of their players (if he hasn’t helped cover something up already).

The Solution

The fact that owners have such huge influence over the commissioner is a huge problem, and it is scary to think how many incidents have been successfully covered up by the league. For every Rice or Brown situation that we hear about, I have a gut feeling that there are several stories of domestic abuse that will never see the light of day.

Coming up with a solution here is difficult, but the solution begins with policing. Instead of having all the owners work with Goodell to hide away these incidents, the owners need to come together and come up with a system that can remove any pressure from Goodell to lie on behalf of a team. Protections for Goodell punishing players would work and it may even be helpful to have a system in place in which the NFL can blow the whistle on attempted coercion by owners, in which case the team in question would be punished (loss of draft picks, revenue).

Part of the inspiration for this logic comes from Katie Nolan’s proposed solution for rape and sexual assault cover-ups that occur in college athletics.

Penalizing a team could have an effect on coaches and front office workers, but it is a small price to pay. The biggest roadblock with a kind of system that stops corruption within the league is the fact that owners might not be willing to agree to this.

This is because the only incentive lies in competitive advantage, but it could be a powerful one. Why do teams want to protect players like Rice and Brown? They want to win more games and push away negative attention. If you punish owners for cover-ups by removing picks, that hurts their competitive advantage and they would be subject to all of the public outrage from that incident. Unlike in today’s cases, an owner like John Mara or Steve Bisciotti wouldn’t be able to toss the majority of that blame towards Goodell, who sometimes seems like a highly-paid scapegoat.

It may seem awkward for Goodell to punish richer, more powerful people who rule over him and can parade him as a puppet. And, well, it is kind of awkward. Support from all owners and the willingness to police other teams morally (with consequences on competitive advantage as motivation) is crucial to all of this.

That may not be enough, so in order for this to truly work, Goodell would need one last line of protection. If a solution like this were to actually work, the commissioner would need something in his contract that legally protects him from removal on the grounds of punishing a team or owner for covering up a crime or the specific details of it. Without the league’s cooperation, I have a feeling we would have heard about the extent of Rice’s and Brown’s actions far sooner.

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