The title might be a little long. But Roger Goodell, so-called "Commissioner" of the National Football League probably wants this.
Want evidence? Here's the case in point: 8:22 left in the 3rd Quarter of the Oakland v. Pittsburgh game yesterday. Oakland's Jason Campbell drops back to pass and tosses a half-hearted, 8-yard pass that ends up being intercepted and returned to the Oakland end zone for a Pittsburgh touchdown. Yet, the play was nullified by a roughing the passer call on the Steelers James Harrison, the same James Harrison who has been fined three times just this season for hits on players the league felt were excessive.
Brilliant! And the fire always follows the smoke, right? Roger Goodell wants the millions who watch his league's product week in and week out every fall to believe that. But even CBS Sports color analyst Dan Fouts questioned the validity of the call after the fact, remarking that it was a borderline call costing the Steelers a touchdown. I guess that since Harrison was the one making the hit, that it was time to throw another log on the fire. Very well.
Either way, Fouts was speaking from knowledge at that point in the game. The officiating crew had already dropped 13 penalty flags and had another seven coming before the game's end. That's 21 penalties called, or, one penalty roughly every 2:52 of the game. That, as former Kansas City and Buffalo Head Coach Marv Levy might say, is a little over officious.
My view is that if Roger Goodell ever wanted to making a lasting statement on the quality of the officiating in the NFL, he could do what Major League Baseball does and go to full-time officials who wouldn't be moonlighting as bank presidents or corporate executives, among other worthwhile life endeavors. They would be in charge of the on-field policing of a multi-billion dollar entertainment empire. That doesn't sound like a product that should be left in the hands of "weekend warriors". Officiating, at that level, isn't the place for those seeking a part-time job. Professional football requires professional officials. It requires those who would make the officiating of the game a full-time pursuit.
And what exactly is the story with Goodell and his "risk management" of the NFL anyway? I was responding to a friend on Facebook about this. The following is the verbatim text of what I told the friend, edited for brevity:
"Football is a horribly violent game. Never mind the fact that it's the most popular game in America, it's still horribly violent. There was nothing illegal about Harrison's hit, and the videotape and Dan Fouts both agreed the call was bogus. It cost the Steelers a TD. What if that had happened to Oakland? It would have snuffed out a comeback. That is why it's a bad call. But Goodell is crapping his pants because of some perceived injury risk. I'll let him in on a secret: if you suit up and play football, you are greatly enhancing your injury risk anyway once you line up. These guys play, they understand the risk and play anyway. Goodell is a piece of work. He's a bean counter, not a football guy. He needs to be gone."
And that sentence says it all. Goodell fails to grasp the intrinsic nature of the product that he is selling. People get hurt. A few of the unfortunate have been seriously hurt enough to end their career. Or, their ability to walk or breathe without an artificial apparatus helping them. Maybe Goodell means well in trying to eliminate all the risk of injury in football. It's simply too bad that it is unrealistic to expect that ever to be the case. Players will continue to get hurt, even on clean hits.
The NFL needs a commissioner who understands the basic nature of the game and understands that the game cannot be governed by some "risk management" spreadsheet in a binder at the league office.
I know my friends in Pittsburgh might not agree with this. But, the one guy who, I believe, possesses both the native intelligence and the playing career I believe are necessary attributes to lead the National Football League is Cris Collinsworth, who currently provides color commentary for NBC's Sunday Night Football and analysis for Showtime's Inside The NFL. He comes across as someone who understands the basic nature of football and he is someone who played the game at its highest level. He is also someone who might be able to withstand the intellectual demands of the job and weigh that with the demand for good public relations from the commissioner's office.
Either way, Roger Goodell has proven to be a failure as National Football League Commissioner. With a looming work stoppage seemingly inevitable, does the National Football League really want to entrust the business of this league to someone who clearly doesn't know the nature of the game, among other faults this man has in his current professional capacity.
I could go on and on about Roger Goodell. It would require much more writing and many more articles. But, as a football fan, you should already know where this writer stands. Roger Goodell is bad for football and even worse as Commissioner of the NFL. He needs to pack his bags.
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3 comments:
I think that Goodell is actually showing some vision here. Articles about this issue are legion, and most of them take your point of view. All of them contain statements equivalent to your "Football is an incredibly violent game", and so it is. Yet this phrase and its cognates all carry the implied, unstated tag line "but it isn't a blood sport". This is always followed by some version of the statement "These are grown men taking their own calculated risks". These comments are something like scripture to the sports faithful, in that they read them and murmur agreement without question.
However, we're starting to learn more and more about the degree of cumulative brain tissue damage that results from a career of hard blows absorbed by even a helmeted head, and the early data is a more than a little frightening. If it turns out to be more of a certainty than a risk, it puts us in different territory. In that case what we have is men engaged in prolonged profound destruction of self and others for entertainment and profit. True, barbarism is the stuff of many historical entertainments, from Vick's dog fighting back to the gladiators, but one way we mark ourselves as a superior society is that we no longer allow these things, or, as with boxing, we've given up our appetite for it.
It may not seem so, but a future where a similar determination could be made about football as currently played is distinctly possible. The dominoes could fall as follows. The evidence for cumulative brain injury becomes overwhelming, to the point where, even if one was willing to permit an adult to make a living playing professional football, it wouldn't be something you could justify letting someone do prior to adulthood. In short, no development of football players until they turn 18. No Friday Night Lights. One would no more permit a 15 year old to play real football than let them join the Marines, or work in a coal mine. Televised fatalities from hits during college or pro games (football has already killed and paralyzed plenty of players at the lower levels) could accelerate the shift in attitude, and once the doubt was introduced, who could say how much it would spread upward.
So as easy as it is to mock Goodell (smarmy soulless corporate types are admittedly big targets), I think he's got a rational concern. Bloodsports have a habit of being relegated to the underbelly of society. Who among us, growing up watching Ali vs. Frazier, or Sugar Ray Leonard, would have imagined a world in which prizefighting, once sports royalty, the fringe sport it is now.
Jack, as much as your argument makes sense on a certain level, it must be noted that players in the NFL and at lower levels of the game of football assume the risk of these types of injuries voluntarily.
Most assuredly, in America, there are several options for athletically talented kids to participate in sports. At the highest levels of sport, there are still numerous options. Volition is the key element that keeps young men pursuing fame and fortune on the gridiron. This, more than likely, will not end.
Now, the issue of head injuries can be addressed two-fold. One, you can simply punish the perpetrators and hold them out as an example. Or, two, players can simply learn to use proper technique in learning how to tackle in the first place.
Head shots in football, are the result of insufficient coaching of tackling technique and are not a recommended means of attacking an oncoming ball carrier if you would like to tackle him for no more gain than he has already achieved.
The league and the commissioner are taking the easy way out by scapegoating one or two players on certain teams. Furthermore, they have looked the other way when similar incidents from players on a few teams have occurred. I don't know if this is coincidence. But, most certainly, this is a growing problem as a double standard.
I think your comparisons to other sports are legitimate, Jack. Ultimately, football should be approached the same way a sport such as boxing is approached. It can't be for everyone. And most, if not all, of the players in the NFL are fully aware of and accept the risk of the kind of catastrophic injuries you mention.
However, this doesn't mean that the Commissioner of the NFL has any business overhauling the fundamental way the game is played unless he is going to become lots more active in sending that message to the sport's developmental levels.
Taking the action he is taking is less about player safety as is a risk management strategy that is a cover-up for what would most surely be a lack of coaching technique. If he wants to do something proactive, he can do worse than to start at that point.
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