Soft judge puts Goodell in hard place on Stallworth

Roger Goodell must be thrilled to know that a judge just tossed him a hand grenade in the Donte Stallworth case. After all, it's tough to be the get-tough-on-crime commissioner when the folks paid to do the job don't.

We're not going to hash out the legal ramifications of Stallworth's sentence after pleading guilty of vehicular manslaughter. Judge Dennis Murphy apparently was satisfied that 30 days in jail, two years of house arrest, eight years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service was an equitable price for a man's death, and lawyers seem to agree that Murphy was within his discretion to make the sentence as seemingly lenient as it was.

Donte' Stallworth is finger printed in court after his guilty plea. (AP)

But now Goodell must adjudicate football's punishment to Stallworth, and he has to find a way to make this look less like the Leonard Little punishment (essentially none) and more like the Michael Vick punishment (essentially open-ended).

Sometimes playing the wise old soul can be a real skin rash.

One of the most enduring and legitimate criticisms of the NFL is that there seem to be profound inconsistencies in its approach to player discipline. These inconsistencies seem in keeping with the general tenor of news judgment across the country, as Sammy Sosa's alleged positive test for performance enhancing drugs six years ago was considered a far bigger deal by editors and news directors. I mean, how can this be right?

But that's how it works. Football is bulletproof because everyone wants it to be, and baseball is the eternal recidivist. We'd like to explain why this is, but repeating the obvious doesn't really help you get back to work now, does it?

But Goodell has a conundrum here, left him by Judge Murphy, namely: How to bring down the hurt on Stallworth commensurate with the image he wants to portray as the ginger Judge Roy Bean, while having the precedent of a lenient legal sentence with which to grapple.

He didn't want to have to figure out what a human life means to the National Football League; Murphy was going to take the issue out of his hands with a stern sentence, because manslaughter is manslaughter, and it has to be worth more than 3½ weeks, right?

Well, no. Murphy decided 30 days would do it, less six days for time served and anticipated good behavior, which one can only assume is far less than Goodell would have deemed sufficient.

And if Stallworth plays again this year (and you know he will, because coaches and general managers don't generally have issues with things like the law), Goodell will look like he's weak on a crime that by any analysis is worse than the one Vick was convicted of a year ago.

So yes, Goodell is right to feel a little torqued off about this little flaming pile of P.R. ghastliness left him by The Murph. He could have used a nice easy one, especially given what awaits him with Plaxico Burress.

Then again, the man makes barely half as much as Bud Selig. Maybe he'd like to tackle the Sammy Sosa tire fire. After all, with our gift for convertible morality, we're going make a far bigger deal about that one than this one. Maybe if Sosa could have done something in the Super Bowl ...

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.