The Roger Goodell Fraud and Stupidity in Seattle’s End Zones

Screen Shot 2015-10-05 at 10.57.28 PMMost all who read this blog already know the patent bogosity that is #Deflategate. But, Roger Goodell, on behalf of the entire National Football League, relentlessly and petulantly screams that not only is the ginned up horse manure worthy of occupying the NFL’s time, he and the NFL have seen fit to copiously waste the time of two different levels of the federal court system.

Even worse, they have either sought, or by their unyielding craven attitude, caused stipulations to be entered that the federal court system accelerate their cases while far more important criminal and civil cases wait. It is the epitome of arrogance and corporate hubris and personal narcissism.

Roger Goodell has consistently lectured all the rest of us, who do not make $44 million a year for being an incompetent jerk, that the whole ginned up, factually unsupported, steer manure that is #Deflategate is all “to protect the integrity of the league”.

What a load of horse manure. Has Roger Goodell seen what happened in the end zone at the end to the game in Seattle last night?? If the “integrity of the league” is not at issue with this type of blatant misapplication of the clear rules, and … what confirmation (or not!) by the NFL’s vaunted replay system (which is curiously not applied in many situations when it is dispositive), then what is?

Well, okay, THAT was really stupid and in complete contradiction of the crystal clear NFL rules. But hey, it is not like the referees could have looked at tape and done the honest thing to not hand the game on a platter to the Seahawks and skew the league for the entire year. Well, of course, they actually COULD HAVE done the right thing, but just did not. But beyond screwing the pooch, then the NFL’s stenographers at ESPN put up some former NFL referee expert™ to explain and cover for the patently obvious wrongful cow dung. Because that is what toadies do I guess.

Not exactly the first time, however, the NFL has willingly sanctioned and ratified stupidity in a Seattle Seahawks end zone that ended up screwing, and altering, the lives and seasons of teams and players across the league. No, of course, there was this intellectually insulting crap that occurred because Roger Goodell was too cheap to pay the referees and umpires in his league a few extra bucks (maybe if NFL paid more, they could get better, and full time, officials). Watch Goodell’s inglorious work in the 2012 game between Seattle and Green Bay:

So, the “integrity of the game” didn’t matter when Roger Goodell was trying to bust the game officials’ union for a cheap last couple of dollars. The “integrity of the game” apparently doesn’t matter to the NFL, or their apologists, over the sham that clearly occurred in Seattle last night. And Goodell and the NFL’s precious “integrity of the game” seems, to them, to be worth more than all other civil litigants in SDNY and the 2nd Circuit, even if there are serious civil rights and criminal cases that get shoved aside for their arrogance.

But Roger Goodell struts out like the $44 million a year arrogant peacock that he is and claims obsessively that a ginned up sting job the league ran on Tom Brady and the Patriots, that has absolutely no credible evidence to support it, was “necessary” for the “integrity of the game”.

The millions of dollars for an inherently biased, not to mention intellectually and legally incoherent, Ted Wells report, the waste of time, and acceleration before all other pending cases and controversies, including criminal cases with lives in the balance, of a federal judge in the Southern District of New York (SDNY)…that was in Roger Goodell’s “Integrity of the game”. They now waste time in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and on an accelerated basis – all on affirmative initial filings by Goodell and the NFL – that, too, is in the precious “integrity of the game” for Roger Goodell.

The only thing that does not seem to be within the “integrity of the game” for Roger Goodell and the NFL is actual integrity and sense of place for the game. What a clownshow Roger Goodell is, and is running for the vaunted NFL shield.

image_print
21 replies
  1. Bay State Librul says:

    Terrific analysis

    Good job

    You should be a guest on the WEEI’s D&C morning talk show in Boston. They have been calling for Goodell’s head for seven straight months.

  2. emptywheel says:

    You forgot to mention the NFL has as its biggest advertisers this season gambling companies that are themselves cheating.

  3. bolasete says:

    the nfl has been subsumed into the entertainment industry. ‘divertissement’ is usually scripted; thus goodell is midwife to stillbirth. tv networks no longer compete; they freely tell you about watching games on their competitors’ channels.
    gore vidal used to talk of the primacy of the script: movies as a writer’s medium. but the writers are not in control; our masters believe it’s all about the stagecraft.

  4. Felonious says:

    On the one hand you have football, the game, played at a consistently high level by New England, embracing its real traditions as handed down to Belichick by his father. On the other hand you have NFL football, the gamblers game. Goodell represents that portion of the population once described by Bill Parcells as not knowing whether the ball is pumped or stuffed. He has been assigned the only real job he can do, schmoozing the corporate sponsors and making sure the gaming institutions are happy. Belichick is anathema to both of those groups and by extension, Goodell. That the league would allow the result of a game be decided by a misapplication of rules is not surprising nor is it all that surprising that it would spend a fortune and clutter the courts with proceedings over a misapplication of rules. What is surprising is that all this insistence on fair play isn’t identified as the obvious rot it is.

    • bmaz says:

      Excellent comment, and spot on.
      .
      Also, I know you have been here before, but think this is the first time I have seen you. Welcome!

  5. JohnT says:

    “F” Rodger Goodell! Everytime you try to watch a video on the leagues website (not giving them free advertising) you have to sit through a gambling commercial (not giving that website) of some dweeb picking players

  6. John_de_Vashon says:

    Betting (haha) that the next shoe to drop will be that someone at DraftKings and/or FanZone and one or more NFL officials had a little riding on one particular outcome to the game.

    • scribe says:

      Actually, the report was that one of the employees at the one gambling house made a huge amount of money playing at the other gambling house, sad huge fortune being the result of his having advance knowledge of information key to making said killing. In other words, cheating.
      .
      But, as to gambling, do remember that the patriarch of the Mara family (Giants) was no slouch when it came to associating with gamblers. And further recall that the patriarch of the Rooney family, Art, built the Steelers on gambling proceeds. http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers/2008/07/10/Professional-football-has-longtime-gambling-ties/stories/200807100256 And kept them alive on what some have called the greatest two-day performance in this history of American horse-playing, winning over $380,000 in the midst of the Depression by picking 11 straight winners. http://foolishpleasure-valerie.blogspot.com/2009/01/legendary-football-team-that-horse.html

      • Bay State Librul says:

        Latest from McCann

        50-50, any takers?

        “The bottom line: DFS appears legal under federal law because it is mainly about skill, but there’s a good argument that this same logic should lead to the federal legalization of sports betting. DFS may also attract legal and political attention over insider trading allegations. So don’t place your bet—or entry fee—on laws that regulate sports betting and fantasy sports staying the same”

        • scribe says:

          Well, where did you expect King Roger to get the growth in NFL income he’s projected, to $25 billion annually by 2027? It isn’t through adding a couple games or even a new international franchise or two. http://www.forbes.com/sites/monteburke/2013/08/17/how-the-national-football-league-can-reach-25-billion-in-annual-revenues/
          With that kind of income and the ability to buy Congresscritters for relative peanuts in campaign funds, betting that they’ll get favorable treatment on fantasy sports betting is as close to a sure thing as possible. See #5 in the linked article.
          Keep in mind, they look to Europe for examples of legalized sports betting. You can bet on soccer in real time, in game, right down to whether your team will score off the pending corner or free kick. Back in 2006 during the World Cup in Germany, it was possible to see the betting sites on the internet stateside – they either hadn’t figured out how to block the site to us or hadn’t realized they might be contravening our electronic and sports gambling laws.
          And, given the way the League is known for going ala carte with rights to maximize their profit, you can be sure they’ll also be running the casino.

  7. bloopie2 says:

    Aren’t the weekly injury reports tied to gambling, also? “The NFL injury report dates from 1947, when it was mandated by then-commissioner Bert Bell because of an incident the previous season. It “had to do with a player who was injured and (unexpectedly) didn’t play in the game,” Aiello says. “There were questions about that, and (Bell) realized that wasn’t good for the integrity of the league, so there should be disclosure about the condition of players.” These days, billions of dollars are wagered on NFL games by 40 million people each week, says USA TODAY oddsmaker Danny Sheridan. While acknowledging that opaquely, the league says the injury report also aims to provide transparency to the public about players’ health status for games. In recent years the injury list has gained a new generation of followers: those in fantasy football leagues that award points based on real NFL players’ statistics. Fantasy team owners check the injury list each week while deciding which players to use on their squads.”.

    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2007-11-22-injury-report-cover_N.htm

    • Felonious says:

      Another reason Belichick has gotten on the wrong side of the league, his rather vague approach to injury reporting.

    • bmaz says:

      YES! The real reason that the “Injury Reports” exist is, seriously, because of gambling. Not a joke.

  8. JohnT says:

    The refs should know the rules, but I can see them getting a little benefit of the doubt in this game, because it seems like an obscure rule
    .
    Re: fraud in sports. Bad calls in baseball usually come down to single plays, the Jefferey Maier interference non-call between Yankees – Orioles; the Twins Joe Mauer double 6 inches inside the left field line against the Yankees that was called a foul ball in 2009; and of course the Don Denkinger call in the WS between the Cards and Royals
    .
    IMHO, those don’t even come close to the outright criminal conspiracy of the NBA in the 2002 NBA Western Conference finals between the Lakers and Kings. It was a sham. It was worse than the WWF because the WWF didn’t even try to present a patina of impartiality and honesty like the so-called big three major sports do
    .
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTjv00L-8H4
    .
    And the NFL has had a shadow hanging over them since the 2010 NFC Conference championship. The Vikings were the better team and they clearly showed it, but they also did their best to literally give it away.
    .
    Then there were the refs. The refs either swallowed their whistles for the Saints, whether under orders from the league office, because it would make a more compelling story after Katrina, or the refs just got caught up emotionally in the moment. Whatever it was, was pathetic. I could try to list every play, but, there were so many – unlike baseball, even though their commish is almost as dictatorial. Like when they gave the Saints a phantom TD in the first half where the Saints players knee hit when he was a yard short; or the myriad non personal fouls called e.g. the helmet to helmet hit by a Saints player on a Vikings player catching a punt.
    .
    Then there were the late hits on Favre
    .
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPZCVCZNc50
    .
    “Integrity of the game” my ass

  9. JamesJoyce says:

    The term “integrity” is no longer applicable to America or our institutions.

    in·teg·ri·ty
    inˈteɡrədē/
    noun
    noun: integrity

    1.
    the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
    “he is known to be a man of integrity”

    synonyms: honesty, probity, rectitude, honor, good character, principle(s), ethics, morals, righteousness, morality, virtue, decency, fairness, scrupulousness, sincerity, truthfulness, trustworthiness “I never doubted his integrity”

    antonyms: dishonesty

    http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2015/10/5/9460055/nfl-blown-call-lions-seahawks-fumble-referees-calvin-johnson

    I wonder how much the odds makers stood to loose if Detroit had won the game?

  10. JohnT says:

    Then there’s this about two court cases the NFL was involved in

    … a New York Jets season-ticket holder and lawyer named Carl J. Mayer sued the New England Patriots over the Spygate scandal.

    The case reached the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals where it was ultimately dismissed. The reason for this was not due to the fact that the Patriots had cheated as the court felt the NFL was entitled to punish its own.

    No, the reason the judge dismissed the case was because your ticket is merely a license, one granted to you by the team, to see a football game.

    then

    There is no doubt that the NFL is entertainment. When taken to court, it often argues that fact as it did before the Supreme Court in another case in early 2010.

    But these entertainment “presentations” (which is an announcement made prior to each and every NFL game, warning fans that all may not be as it appears) today …

    http://bleacherreport.com/articles/587027-the-10-games-or-so-the-nfl-may-have-fixed-in-the-2010-season

    I hope Brady’s lawyers bring up the NFL’s hypocrisy in their argument about integrity

Comments are closed.