The founder of Barstool Sports created fan towels of Goodell depicted as a clown. Courtesy | Getty Images
Every commissioner of any major sports league faces their fair share of catastrophes. With the 2023 NFL season officially underway, it is important to remind fans that a particular commissioner has had an abundance of opportunities to improve his league, yet he continuously fails.
That man is the NFL’s Roger Goodell.
Goodell has presided over the league for so long that it seems as if its fans are becoming numb to the senseless punishments players are receiving. At the beginning of the 2022 season, Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Calvin Ridley was suspended for the entire year and was forced to forfeit his $11.1 million base salary for gambling.
There are reasonable policies in place for players gambling NFL games, but I’m quite certain NFL fans can agree that if Ridley is being suspended for his actions, Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson should not be allowed to play football while he faces ongoing sexual assault allegations.
Unfortunately, the Watson scandal is just one in a long list of issues Goodell has handled horrifically. The most notable scandal of the past decade has arguably been the “Deflategate” scandal of 2014. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were accused of deflating footballs during halftime of the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. The team’s punishment included a four-game suspension for Brady, loss of draft picks, and a $1 million fine.
There were many issues with the punishment that Goodell subjected the Patriots to, including the fact that attorney Ted Wells’ report stated it was only “more probable than not” that Brady knew of the deflating of the footballs. The Patriots would also go on to beat the Colts by 38 points in that game. Any football fan with the smallest amount of common sense can arrive at the conclusion that the pounds per square inch level of the footballs had little to nothing to do with the outcome of the game.
Another major controversy that happened to stem from “Deflategate” was the still-present feud between Goodell and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. After being arrested at the NFL headquarters for protesting the Brady suspension, and creating over 70,000 fan towels containing Goodell depicted as a clown for a Patriots game, Portnoy, and many other Barstool employees were banned from ever attending any NFL game or event.
A few years later, during a House Oversight Committee hearing about the Washington Commanders, Representative Jim Jordan asked Goodell why he banned the sports journalists, and Goodell responded by saying that he was unaware of the situation.
Let me get this straight: The commissioner of the NFL is unaware of the man who held a protest at his headquarters and made a famous image of said commissioner as a clown? I’ll let you do the math on that one.
There are many other controversies that Goodell has found himself on objectively the wrong side of 一 the list is quite absurd. The NFL drew an average of 16.7 million viewers per game last season, and this criminal is running the entire thing. What is one of the only satisfying things fans are able to do to showcase their feelings? Boo their television screens on draft day.
The time for a new commissioner of the NFL is long overdue. Fire Goodell.