Dr. Goodellove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the NFL

I can see how the New York Giants could squeak by Dallas by a point or three this weekend.

I can also see Roger Goodell sitting in the press box with a high-powered rifle aimed at the referee, because he wants a Patriots-Cowboys Super Bowl.

What Roger wants, Roger gets.

The Pats nearly blew it when Mangenius dropped a dime on them in Week 1. Roger had to appear pissed at the Pats and levied heavy fines.

But he didn’t bar the Pats from the playoffs, and he didn’t launch a fuller investigation. Instead he had the evidence destroyed and allowed the Pats—and the 2007 NFL season—to move forward.

Roger could have imposed heavier sanctions, such as barring Pats' players from engaging in endorsements and self-promotion off the field. Ads for the Randy Moss School of Pushing Off would have disappeared, for instance.

There are other examples of Roger’s heavy hand. Forget the grassy knoll in 1963—no, I’m not talking about the 1963 NFL Championship game at Wrigley Field between the Bears and Giants, played in 10-degree weather.

The current-day grassy knoll was that abomination of a “football” field at Wembley Stadium that Roger forced the Giants to play a regular-season game on this year. The plan was for Giants players to go down in droves on the pitch, with injuries that would ensure the Cowboys a clear path to winning the NFC East and ultimately to advancing to the Super Bowl.

Turns out that the Cowboys didn’t need the help to win the NFC East but Roger wasn’t taking any chances. 

I suspect Roger also has a hand in Bill Belichick being drugged for every press conference this season. He sounds as monotone as your ninth-grade math teacher—heck, your any-grade math teacher.

Contrary to popular belief, Belichick shares all sorts of strategy and “inside football” infomation at his press conferences. But he waits until everyone—including the camera operators—has dozed off so that the viewing public never sees it. We don't get to read about it because print reporters also are in dreamland by the time Belichick shows his hand.

It’s one of his guilty pleasures. That, and beating the snot out of opposing teams.

If somehow Roger doesn’t end up with the Super Bowl matchup he desires this year, it will only hasten his timetable for approving NFL franchises in far-flung places such as Morocco and Tibet.

Perhaps Roger will even pull franchises from certain cities to relocate teams that let him down.

The Chechnya Cowboys? One can only hope.