It’s a question that people have been asking lately:
What Is NFL Lockout Doing To Roger Goodell’s Legacy?
What will Roger Goodell’s legacy be after the lockout?
Pro Football Talk wrote this week that Goodell needs to start considering his legacy the longer this lockout drags on. Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports wrote that the players’ resentment of Goodell is rising.
So what to make of this. With today’s media world, every public back-and-forth between the players and owners is magnified. This isn’t like 1987 where you get your daily newspaper and read the latest in the labor drama. It’s 24/7/365 and everything the Commissioner says, or does, is put under a microscope. With Twitter, players can immediately (and publicly) react to what he says. Everything is emotional and everything is intensified.
In the end, though, will it all matter? Once football is back -- and it will be back -- will people remember the back-and-forth? Will they remember the finger-pointing?
I can see an argument for it either way though I think I’d lean to what Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said about this whole mess last week:
"We're in a business dispute right now with the players. That's all it is. It's nothing personal. When it's over, I know we'll go back to the great relationship that we had before it started."
Ignoring the idea that it’s just a business dispute (because it’s more than that), I tend to agree with this thought process. Right now, Goodell is the face of the lockout. But once the lockout is over, he represents the owners and players.
Time will tell.
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