Goodell will give Limbaugh bum's Rush from NFL

Because we know that the last time Roger Goodell was stupid was the night of his first date (a time of life in which we know that neither party involved can be anything but stupid), we will not be surprised when he performs one of his neater magic tricks.

Making Rush Limbaugh disappear.

Rush Limbaugh's politics make him a lightning rod the NFL doesn't need. (Getty Images)

Limbaugh's proposed ownership stake in the St. Louis Rams has sat on a back burner in the media for the past week or so, and only really started to heat up when NFLPA director DeMaurice Smith made a cautious but pointed criticism of Limbaugh's public record Sunday as it relates to blacks, sports and blacks in sports.

Smith's stand: I can't stop it, but I can tell my clients not to like it. It comes as close as a union leader can come to making a stock tip, as in, "Don't buy until you've seen the prospectus and talked to people who know it better than you."

It comes, actually, as close as a union leader ever has to saying, "Stay away unless you don't have a choice."

Which, judging by the recent results, is how the Rams are operating anyway.

But we digress. Limbaugh as national lightning rod is a well-worn tale, one which we won't engage here. You hate him, you like him, doesn't much matter to us, at least not for purposes of this little screed.

This is about what Roger Goodell intends to do about the potential blowback from a Limbaugh ownership, and again we reiterate that Goodell hasn't been a dope in some time.

Thus, whatever the intermediate machinations and internal arm-twisting may be involved, the end game is this:

Either Limbaugh's group, or he specifically, is rejected by an owners vote for any number of listed reasons but which will all boil down to, "His history isn't worth the public dung storm," or he is approved but only as a silent partner.

Yes, we know getting Limbaugh to be silent will be no easier than using a butter knife to perform a Caesarean section on a bear. We don't have to do it, so we don't much care.

But Goodell does, and Goodell will. He will let Dave Checketts, the front man for the group that wants to buy the Rams from the Frontiere family, know that Limbaugh is in only with a full muzzle, or that the team will miraculously be sold to someone else (hey, I know -- how about Mark Cuban?), or not be sold at all.

Goodell will do this because he will have already worked the owners (and in fact probably already has). He will use as the most compelling reason the fact that the marketplace itself may keep Checketts' Rams in as dire straits as they are today, as potential free agents are informed by their representatives, family or friends about Limbaugh's history and convinced to find another team.

In other words, unfettered capitalism at work, and saying over and over, "I think I'd rather be a Chief." Now if that isn't a threat to make the blood run cold, we can't fathom what would be.

And if Checketts, who has worked in the NBA and as such understands the player market as well as anyone, gets the message, he will then go to Limbaugh and either say, "Sorry, Rush, but your money's no good," or "Yeah, you're in, so we'll need a check and your larynx by end of business today."

What Goodell won't allow, either by commissioner fiat or through his work as the front man for the consortium, is for Limbaugh to become the public face of the franchise. Too third-rail-ish by any measure.

So he'll work the back channels where commissioners do their best work, and he will get the result he wants -– either Limbaugh's money without his input, or someone else's money. He'll do it deftly and surreptitiously, because a commissioner who can't do stuff nobody sees isn't a commissioner, he's a night janitor with better clothes.

And while Limbaugh may squawk, and progressives may howl, all at each other and all within their First Amendment rights, Goodell will be the guy who makes this go away, one way or another -- because he can. And because he must. There is nothing more debilitating to any sports organization than meddlesome/stupid/underfunded/gasbag owners, and Limbaugh is at least one of those. You may argue among yourselves which it is -- just don't share those findings with us.

Besides, there's one more reason why Limbaugh can't be a visible and voluble NFL owner, and even he can't argue with this one:

Glenn Beck buying a piece of the Raiders.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.