NFL Owners Approve New Personal-Conduct Policy: Latest Details and Reaction

After months of speculation and scrutiny, the NFL owners have voted to approve changes to the league's personal-conduct policy. Albert Breer of NFL.com first reported the news:

According to Mike Garafolo of Fox Sports, a few notable changes from the previous policy will bring harsher punishment to offenders.

NFL.com revealed how league discipline will be handled under the new policy:

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The appointment by the commissioner of a highly qualified league office executive with a criminal justice background to issue initial discipline. The disciplinary officer will be hired for a newly created position of Special Counsel for Investigations and Conduct. This individual will oversee the NFL's investigatory procedures and determine discipline for violations of the Personal Conduct Policy. For players, this is consistent with past practice under the CBA in which a member of the commissioner's staff has generally issued discipline for off-field misconduct.

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The full breakdown of those changes can be found here.

NFL.com also provided comment from Roger Goodell after the announcement:

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With considerable assistance from the many people and organizations we consulted, NFL ownership has endorsed an enhanced policy that is significantly more robust, thorough, and formal. We now have a layered evaluation process to take into account a diversity of expert views. This will better enable us to make appropriate decisions and ensure accountability for everyone involved in the process.

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While the policy has been approved by the owners, the NFLPA must ratify the policy for it to go into effect. The NFLPA released a statement on the new policy:

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Our union has not been offered the professional courtesy of seeing the NFL's new personal conduct policy before it hit the presses. Their unilateral decision and conduct today is the only thing that has been consistent over the past few months.

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Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk previously reported the players were prepared to challenge the new policy: 

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Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the NFLPA immediately will study the new policy in search of any provisions that potentially constitute topics that would be mandatory subjects of collective bargaining. If the union believes that the NFL has included terms that relate to subjects requiring bargaining with the union, the NFLPA will file a “system arbitration” proceeding under the labor deal, initiate an action with the National Labor Relations Board, or both.

The NFL currently possesses the power to impose discipline under the personal conduct policy and to handle the appeal. It’s believed that the NFL will delegate the initial decision to a panel of experts but Commissioner Roger Goodell will retain final say over the process.

Other issues relate to the procedures for investigating allegations against players before their legal cases are resolved and the circumstances under which players will be suspended with pay while their legal cases are pending. If the NFL implements placement on the Commissioner-Exempt list with pay as the standard practice for players accused of certain crimes and declines to give the players credit for time served when the time comes to impose discipline, look for the NFLPA to fight this implicit guilty-until-proven-innocent approach aggressively.

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George Atallah of the NFLPA responded to the policy via his Twitter account following the announcement:

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has talked publicly about the need to bring changes to the personal conduct policy since discussing, among other things, the Ray Rice incident and rash of domestic violence cases during a September press conference, via Will Brinson of CBS Sports:

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There will be changes to our personal conduct policy. I know this because we will make it happen. Nothing is off the table. Let me say it again: We will implement new conduct policies. They will have a set of clear and transparent rules for league and club personnel, owners and players. My goal is to complete this by the Super Bowl.

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After the initial two-game Rice suspension that was universally panned, Goodell made changes to the league's domestic-violence policy that started with an automatic six-game suspension without pay for the first offense. He sent a memo to all 32 league owners and NFL personnel, via CNN.com.  

Goodell attempted to correct course on the Rice situation after video was released of the incident involving Rice's then-fiancee by indefinitely suspending Rice, via NFL spokesman Greg Aiello:

However, Rice appealed the second suspension on the grounds that a player can't be punished twice for the same incident. He won the appeal on Nov. 28 and was immediately reinstated, making him eligible to play right away if a team signed him. 

According to a statement released by the NFL following Rice's reinstatement, via Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, the league wanted to make sure it had a need to develop a conduct policy that is "clear, fair and comprehensive":

One reason for the holdup in getting a new policy implemented was the way punishment would be handed out and who would be handing it out, per Rob Maaddi of The Associated Press (via ABCNews.com):

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The union wants disciplinary power now held by Goodell to be handled by a neutral arbitrator. The league, so far, doesn't agree.

And while both the league and the NFL Players Association want to change the personal conduct policy, the sides disagree on how to do it. The union wants to bargain for changes to the policy, while the NFL wants to implement changes with union input the same way it changes rules on the field, like when it moved kickoffs to the 35-yard line.

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This was a critical moment for the NFL. Its reputation has been damaged by all the off-field issues, not just domestic violence, and changing the personal-conduct policy was a way to go about repairing its public image. 

While a new policy won't change opinions on how Goodell and the NFL have handled past issues, it should help lead to more consistent and fair punishment.