For the NFL's Sake, Let Executioner, Err, Commissioner Goodell Do His Job

The National Football League has an image "issue."

Whether you think it's a problem or simply a farcical storm cooked up by haters in the media, the perception that its ranks are being overwhelmed by sociopaths is very real.

In an advertising driven business, perception is nine-tenths of the ball game.

Me-first prima donnas and future reality-television fixtures like Terrell Owens, Chad Ocho Cinco, Brett Favre, Brandon Marshall, Jay Cutler, etc. have played their role in creating a presumption of dismissible conceit and self-fascination.  Played it to perfection.

But esos hombres are lovable stooges compared to the shrouded villains doing the real work.  The more sinister characters who've found themselves in 'cuffs and the harsher kind of bright light are doing the substantive damage.

Matt Jones, Pacman Jones, Michael Vick, Tank Johnson, Plaxico Burress, Jared Allen, Chris Henry, Donte Stallworth, Larry Johnson, etc.

The identified players boast some glittering on-field accomplishments.

They also boast offenses ranging from drug charges to taking the life of another human-being.  And they hit pretty much every important point in between.

Now you have a guy like Michael Crabtree—whose contractual obstinacy has been thoroughly and nicely covered by some of Bleacher Report's own—trying to elbow his way into the nastiness.

I'm usually more sympathetic to professional football players who are holding out for extra scratch.  Theirs is a legitimately dangerous profession—members of the League, more than any pro athlete, risk significant and permanent injury on almost every snap.

However, you cannot argue the 10th pick in the NFL draft has the fair market value equivalent to that of the seventh pick.  That's laughable—until the rookie takes a rep in the NFL, his value is whatever the objective assessment says it is and the draft has spoken.

You can argue you deserve more money than those drafted subsequently, but it doesn't work in the other direction.  If your value were higher, you would've been drafted higher.  Clearly, there is a dash of fiction at work because not every team ahead of the San Francisco 49ers needed a wide receiver like Crabtree and quarterbacks turn the whole shebang on its ear.

So what?

The violin playing in the background means that's life—it ain't always fair and nobody offered a multi-million dollar contract to play football should ever think about publicly bemoaning the fact.

Regardless, these are the things that greet Roger Goodell each sunrise he spends as the NFL's commissioner.

Is it any wonder he's taken a firm stance against all comers?  Can you blame him?  Should you blame him?  How else would you suggest getting the wack-jobs back in their cells?

I won't claim each and every punitive bouquet Goodell's handed out has been perfectly appropriate.

I don't think he's gone too far yet and I think he's been largely consistent, but those are casual opinions.  What is fact is that he's given each and every functioning cortex fair warning:  stay out of trouble or you'll have at least one book thrown at you...possibly an entire case.

Ignore the warning and pay the piper—no quarter should be asked as none will be given.

But there are still voices in the media protesting.

They argue Roger Goodell is simply playing the iron-fisted dictator over his modern-day indentured servants and doing it all for the greater glory of the curmudgeonly crusties in the owners' boxes.

Hogswallop.

Hey folks, these guys who've enjoyed Goodell's heat haven't been dropped in his crosshairs by a cruel fate.  They aren't being unfairly persecuted by a hostile society or caught in an episode of "Everyone's an Idiot" like that nonsense at Harvard.

These are men who would almost certainly be in PRISON if they weren't wealthy, pseudo-celebrities.

Yet NFL Players' Association executive director DeMaurice Smith plans to make the commissioner's authority a primary element of the upcoming labor negotiations.  He wants there to be even less negative consequence for his shepherd's sins.

I'm sure those will go smoothly.

This phenomenon is hardly unique to the NFL or even professional sports—very few groups like oversight because it increases the likelihood their members will be held accountable for their nefarious actions.

Take the banking and mortgage crises in the United States of America.

Much of the financial sector is objecting to additional regulation to this day.

Callously and unintelligently in the wake of the largest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, one that was undoubtedly caused or greatly exacerbated by LACK of regulation, while staring at a horror-scape of collapsed banks and vaporized life savings.

So the NFL is not alone.  It's not even close to the worst transgressor.

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't or can't lead by example.

The National Football League has an image problem and Roger Goodell is doing his best to eradicate it.  The players and all concerned would be wise to let him do just that.

Because the sooner it happens, the stronger the NFL will be.

**www.pva.org**