SULLIVAN: Every year the NFL commissioner comes out with a too serious speech about the state of the game of football. This year we wanted to beat Commissioner Roger Goodell to the punch.
Goodell must feel like he’s on top of the world. The NFL is the number one sport in America today. And with his new NFL TV Network and plans to expand into Canada and Mexico it looks like the NFL is a juggernaut. But this big ship is starting to show some cracks.
The NFL’s playoff season gets 12 teams into the mix. With parity about 25 teams were alive until the last week of the season. Is this good? Maybe, but I liked the old way of teams building dominant forces and holding sway in the league for a few years. The only team to be able to do that in recent years is the New England Patriots. Now every two-bit football program can get hot in December, win it all and then not get near the Super Bowl again for years and years. Watch the Pittsburgh Steelers and see if they get into a Super Bowl before 2015. My bet is they won’t.
Also, the steroid problem in the NFL is huge. They test these guys during the season, but I would bet a lot of NFL players juice in the off-season when there is no testing and it is time for them to bulk up. The line men are just massive. Cornerbacks look like linebackers did just 10 years ago. The league is churning out Supermen and the game is becoming almost too violent. For this alone, Goodell better look into steroids a little harder.
Then there is the case of Shawne Merriman. A linebacker for the San Diego Chargers who got busted for steroid use in October—received a four-game suspension—and came back in November only to be voted into the Pro Bowl. Merriman’s little “Lights Out” sack dance is a steroid induced dance of dominance. But no one seems to mind if football players juice. The death of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward at 39 from a brain tumor may or may not be steroid related, but it seems like an inordinate amount of football players die young.
Definitely much too young in the case of Denver cornerback, Darrent Williams. Williams was killed On Jan. 1 in a drive-by shooting in Denver. The world is crashing in on the NFL and it is not pretty. God rest Darrent Williams. Roger Goodell should know that his game is not as pretty as his booster speech later this month will tell us.
HOLLANDER: There could be no crueler irony than a man nicknamed “Ironhead” dying from a brain tumor. But you can’t lie that at the feet of Roger Goodell. The guy already has enough crap on his carpet.
As soon as Paul Tagliabue left the commissioner’s office this summer, NFL players began acting like spoiled brats who terrorize the new babysitter just minutes after their parents leave for vacation. In September, DEA agents busted San Diego Chargers safety Terrence Kiel at the team’s practice facility. That arrest recently implicated several other Chargers in a bizarre Chinese smuggling ring. Another Charger, linebacker Steve Foley, was shot and wounded by an off-duty police officer in an incident in which Foley was charged with drunken driving.
In all, it’s been reported that 35 NFL players have been arrested this year on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to felony burglary. The Cincinnati Bengals led the league with eight players arrested this year, including one player who has been arrested three times. Wait, make that 36 players arrested. Minneapolis police had to use a Taser gun on Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Travis Taylor outside a nightclub when Taylor, hours after a season ending 41-21 loss to St. Louis, refused to let an ambulance through. I can’t wait to see what the Playoffs will bring.
I don’t think the NFL Network helped things along any. You had games played on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and at all kinds of strange times. That the league could not get the NFL Network carried on major cable outlets like Time Warner was an abject commercial and public relations failure.
Also this season, the estate of Steelers great Mike Webster finally got justice from the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which upheld a 2005 ruling that the league’s retirement plan wrongfully denied disability benefits to Webster.
The NFL was publicly shamed and legally required to pay Webster’s family $1.18 million plus interest in back payments.
Add the fact that found-guilty steroid user Shawn Merriman gets to keep all his sacks on the record books, go to the Pro Bowl and be considered for Defensive Player of the Year, and you’ve got a serious league image problem.
That’s where Goodell, the commissioner, is supposed to step in and step up. He’s been invisible.
SULLIVAN: Goodell is the Claude Reins of sport commissioners. He is “The Invisible Man.” Or, even better, he is Roger “Nero” Goodell fiddling while the NFL is burning.
Okay, that may be a bit over the top, but no one seems to be willing to deal with the problems that the is NFL facing. From thuggery to steroids to parity making the game boring, everyone acts like the game is at its zenith and has no where to go but up.
The New York Giants are the best example of the problems facing the NFL. Chest thumping braggarts who are not as good as they think they are. A record of 8-8 and a Wild Card are what they are. That and nothing more. Mediocre. Just a bunch of Average Joes who think they are the 1985-6 Bears. The Giants are just another boring team in a league loaded with the same.
I don’t have an answer for the NFL crime wave but a few lifetime suspensions would straighten out most of the wanna-be gangsters. Most of these guys are millionaires, but still want to act like they have “street cred.” Ban the next felon for life and see how these fake tough guys fall in line and start acting like men.
HOLLANDER: Putting criminal behavior and an ineffectual commissioner aside, I still think this NFL season showed us some beautiful things.
The Jets showed us how the sum can play better than its parts while the Giants showed us the opposite. Michael Vick became the first QB to run for over 1,000 yards in a season—leading his team nowhere—while Vince Young became the first to show the NFL how to win with a running QB. Tom Brady showed everyone in America that there are still some star professional athletes who choose honor over money, courage instead of self-protection and team success before individual statistical achievement. Chad Pennington, Drew Brees and Steve McNair each deserve “Comeback Player of the Year” for their valiant leadership and determination. LaDainian Tomlinson shattered the single-season touchdown record with indomitable will and unstoppable rushing. He should be and will be the NFL MVP. And Brett Favre continues to shine as the most competitive athlete in any sport.
While I share your concern about parity leading to terminal mediocrity, I also really like that the NFL’s level playing field leaves the game largely in control of the coaches. The NFL remains great because no one player is indispensable.
Where, say in the NBA, a player can hold an entire franchise hostage, an NFL team will cut a superstar and still have a fair chance to win it’s next game regardless of the opponent. This makes players play hard all the time. As a fan, that’s all I really want: authenticity.
Discipline is a problem that Goodell must address, swiftly and forcefully. Yet if you asked me what the biggest problem related to the NFL is, I would say the corroding influence of “fantasy football” on media coverage, fan perception, player performance and contract negotiations. But that’s a discussion for another time.
