Roger Goodell spoke to the media for the first time since last month’s owners meetings, joining ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike Tuesday morning to discuss DeflateGate, the Outside the Lines story nuking the Patriots and the NFL for Spygate and his decision to not attend the NFL’s season opener Thursday night in New England.
Roger Goodell willing to give up some disciplinary power, but only a little
The NFL commissioner came out of hiding to speak to “Mike & Mike” on Tuesday.
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As usual, Goodell's words were mostly evasive and PR-like, but there were some revelations that came from the interview. For one, the NFL commissioner said he's "open to changing his role" of being the one with final say on player discipline issues. The NFL and Goodell have had multiple rulings overturned recently, most famously suspensions of Tom Brady, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson.
“It’s become extremely time consuming,” Goodell said to Mike Greenberg and Golic. “I think I have to be focused on a variety of other issues and that’s what I’ve discussed with many owners over the last couple of years. We believe a discipline officer or some type of panel, who could make at least the initial decision, and then a designee of mine on some type of appeal would be a better system.”
Goodell, however, did balk at the notion of handing that role over to a third party.
“We believe the standards of the NFL are important to uphold,” Goodell said. “We believe you don’t delegate the responsibility or those standards. We believe someone with a deep knowledge of the game and our policies and our rules are important, particularly when it relates to competitive violations.”
Goodell was also asked about ESPN's report stating that him coming down hard on the Patriots for DeflateGate was a "makeup call" for going soft on Robert Kraft, whom he's long been close with, during Spygate.
“I have not seen this report, Mike, in any way, but I can just tell you I’m not aware of any connection between the Spygate procedures and the procedures we went through here,” Goodell Said. “We obviously learn from every time we go through any kind of a process, try to improve it, get better at it, but there’s no connection in my mind to the two incidents.”
When asked why the NFL is appealing Judge Richard M. Berman's decision to nullify the league's four-game suspension of Tom Brady, Goodell said, "We believe we were consistent with the CBA. That's simply a legal matter." He also said that he and Robert Kraft's relationship remains "very strong," and that he's not attending the game between the Steelers and Patriots Thursday night because he doesn't want to be a "distraction."
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