Commish drops hammer, but what's his limitations?
Pacman Jones and Chris Henry got the book thrown at them Tuesday, and all across the land, Roger Goodell is being hailed as the Judge Dredd the NFL has lacked for all too long.
Which is sort of the whole idea, if we know the way the NFL works, and we think we do. Bon temps roulet until too many advertisers get queasy, and then bring down the hammer.
So what, then is the down side here? What's so wrong with the boss coming down on two spectacularly serial offenders of one statute or another? Why should we be raining on Goodell's parade?
For one, somebody should always be raining on a parade, because nothing and nobody should be unanimous.
But two, and more importantly, we get a little wonky when someone exercises absolute power absolutely, even if it seems like the no-brainiest of no-brainers.
See, while we listened intently to Goodell's righteous indignation, what we didn't hear was the limits of his power. What we didn't hear was what exactly constitutes enough misbehavior? What we didn't hear was the league's stand on smoking dope as opposed to beating up one's girlfriend, the difference between carrying a gun and hanging out with someone who carries a gun. In short, how much do you actually have to do to get Roger Goodell's blond hair to stand on end?
Now the Jones and Henry test cases aren't really tests at all, because they stack up so highly. Jones had been interrogated by police regarding 10 incidents that either involved Jones or to which he was an alleged witness, while Henry was arrested four times in 14 months. Now that's Pro Bowl quality recidivism.
But the problem with Goodell's newfound sledgehammer is that he can pretty much use it at his own discretion, and the guidelines seem so, well, telescopic. For instance, Terrell Owens is guilty of being a narcissist, a mercenary and a general pain in the nethers to his employers, but he hasn't done anything illegal that we know of. Is he vulnerable? Don't know. Only Goodell does.
Next, we don't know if it's the number of incidents that got Jones and Henry in Goodell's crosshairs, their severity, or the public's exasperation with them. We as consumers have the right to know if Goodell is interested in quality of crime, or quantity of crime.
In addition, the suspensions were clearly designed only to punish rather than to rehabilitate, and given that, we ought to have more of a sense that Goodell sees himself that way, which we don't.
In truth, this is the trail that David Stern has already blazed, and more questions have been asked about the scope of Stern's power than are being asked about Goodell's.
I mean, if Goodell's ability to suspend is based on the late Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart's classic definition of public indecency -- "I know it when I see it" -- that means he's got pretty wide latitude to get who he wants for whatever he wants, for whatever reason strikes him at the time.
That doesn't mean he'll always be wrong -- Jones and Henry are pretty obvious initial targets. It does, however, mean that without clear guidelines based on universally agreed-upon notions of what constitutes bad behavior, Goodell has more power to punish employees than any legally appointed judge, and that's more power than he ought to have.
A fairer test would take into account the severity of the crime -- any crime against people is punished more harshly than any crime against property, for example. A fairer test would spell out the number of incidents, either reported or otherwise, rather than make it a vague standard of "the fans say that's too many." A fairer test would stand the scrutiny of what we would hope is a union challenge that would go before a real judge and determine by legal means the true limits of Goodell's power. Playing football is a privilege, but so is being a commissioner, so Goodell should be clear on what he can do and what he can't, what he should and what he shouldn't.
That way, we all can be clear on it. After all, he who purports to clean up the game needs to be pretty damned tidy himself.
