For a short week, plenty happened on the field and off, so let’s get right to a few of the things we learned right before we open the regular season.
Roger Goodell’s time as NFL Commissioner has to be running out
Right? Right? The fantasy of the Tom Brady vs Roger Goodell DeflateGate court case was that it could have a “Loser leaves town” wrestling match quality to it. But for NFL owners, it almost has to at this point, doesn’t it?
Goodell has lost every significant disciplinary ruling in court over the last few years. Starting with BountyGate and going forward, Goodell’s rulings have been tossed out faster than Nick Nolte drunkeny stumbling into a kid’s birthday party.
The owners are already talking about changing Goodell’s disciplinary “powers” and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank has publicly professed his displeasure at Goodell’s ineptitude.
“It’s not healthy for the NFL to be in the kind of litigious position that it’s been for the last several years,” Blank said. “I think that the commissioner is working hard to hold up the respect and integrity of the game, the competitive balance of the game and the shield. Having said that, I think we have to find ways to get to a better place sooner with the NFLPA than the process that we’ve gone through.”
The irony of the DeflateGate saga is that Goodell had no choice to punish Brady because the other NFL owners demanded it. That’s why Goodell couldn’t settle before the final decision, even though I’m sure his cowardly nature almost demanded it. The fact is Goodell went easy on Brady in the first place with just a four-game suspension, especially after all his actions to defy the NFL during the investigation came to light.
Goodell has been a good dog for the New England Patriots before, destroying the SpyGate evidence so he didn’t have to ban Bill Belichick for life or strip them of their Super Bowl titles and this is what it got him. Hopefully, it’ll all end in his unemployment.
The Robert Griffin III story with the Washington Redskins isn’t over yet
As the final cuts roll in today when teams must pare their rosters down to 53 players, one thing is clear; Redskins QB Robert Griffin III will not be one of those cuts.
There’s two ways to look at this and none of them really reflect well on Jay Gruden. But, frankly as every Applebees mirror in the Southern Maryland/Northern Virginia are knows, there’s really no good way to reflect on Jay Gruden.
The first way is that the Redskins aren’t in any salary cap trouble so there’s no reason to send Griffin packing when there might be some trade value later in the season as other teams lose their quarterbacks to injury or struggle with the guys they’ve kept on their roster. Not an unwise move, but one obviously Gruden doesn’t want to deal with as he’s a day away from hiring Tonya Harding’s ex boyfriend to go after RG3’s knee.
The other way to look at is that Redskins owner Dan Snyder isn’t done with Griffin yet, but he may be done with Gruden. Now, baring the world suddenly turning on its head and the Redskins fielding a winning team, Gruden is going to be fired at season’s end. Since Snyder realizes this, he doesn’t want to toss his former first-round pick (that cost him three first round picks) for a coach who should probably be mopping the floor of a Fudruckers instead of coaching football.
We’ll find out if “pissed off Tom Brady” is really a thing
Brady was all but untouchable through all the past New England Patriots’ cheating scandals, but this time the fickle finger of fandom was pointed squarely at his immaculate, narcissistic face. Brady is unquestionably the bad guy in all this, regardless of reading and reasoning skills displayed by a federal judge or the ineptitude of Roger Goodell. Everybody outside of New England hates Tom Brady’s guts now. It’s a good time to be alive.
The “pissed off Tom Brady” everyone expected to see in the preseason didn’t show up at all. Like some kind of DirecTV ad, you got “Hapless Tom Brady,” “Easy Pickings Tom Brady” and “Doofus Tom Brady” and there’s no reason to think that same guy won’t show up next Thursday when they play the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Add to that his recent marital problems and maybe Patriots’ fans won’t be so sad to see Jimmy Garoppolo take the reins after all if the NFL wins its appeal.
