By getting both sides of the issue riled up over what is essentially nothing, nobody’s talking about domestic violence or other serious issues that dog the league today.
Truly, a tempest in a teapot!
Was it worth it to trash and tarnish the image of someone who might be the greatest to ever play the game at that position?
Apparently Goodell thought so.
We'll just have to see how history sees and defines these 2 men.
CA....
They’ve done a pretty good job of handling the domestic violence thing. Yeah they bobbled it early last year, but they were the first league to make it specifically against the rules and punish a player for it.
There’s a few big problems with keeping it going. First it keeps the story alive. If Goodell just took his lumps (maybe a statement on how he feels the infractions were egregious but he understands the judge’s ruling and will work to make the rule book match his beliefs about the crimes) this just evaporates when games start. Sure it’ll be mentioned before the first 4 Pats games, but that’ll be in passing. We know from previous problems having games played is the ultimate balm, look how the Rice thing evaporated once games started happening. Also it just seems petty, he hasn’t taken any other loss to the next court level, why this one. He’s a sport commissioner, he should be able to comprehend that when you lose you lose.
His worst case scenario here is the hearings start next February so it becomes the talk of two off seasons in a row. Even worse is if the Pats win SBL THEN the court cases start back up.
10 or 20 years from now when he comes out with an autobiography I really want to read this chapter. I really want to know what he was thinking. To me the minute they decided to run a sting on Brady instead of just changing procedures to match every other sports league in the country and make tampering impossible this was on a path that could only embarrass Goodell and the league.