Roger Goodell: The Hypocrite

Roger Goodell had a tremendous task of cleaning up the NFL's image, and so far he's done a good job of this. Yet, even with that, there's one thing that keeps him from having done a great job, and that is his hypocrisy.

When he became the commissioner of the NFL, Goodell set in place a stronger personal policy for the NFL players. These policies allowed for the NFL to discipline individuals even before the incident in question would go to court. Since that policy was put into place, Goodell has suspended Pac-Man Jones for a year in 2007, eight games for Chris Henry in 2007, and Marshawn Lynch for the first three games of the 2009 season.

Jones' and Henry's suspensions were for multiple arrests, and neither Jones or Henry had been convicted of any of them.

Yet, what's interesting is the fact that Ben Roethlisberger had been accused of raping a woman in Las Vegas during a celebrity golf tournament. Was there any punishment for Roethlisberger? Nope.

I'm not saying that suspending Roethlisberger after those claims was right or wrong, but according to the policy put in place by Goodell, he had the ability to suspend Roethlisberger.

I also think that the Roethlisberger case was a little bit different than most of the cases, and he realized that, so he's in the waiting stage to see what's actually going to happen with the case against Roethlisberger.

However, there's now an even bigger story that's been in the NFL news. That is Tom Cable, the coach of the Oakland Raiders, assaulting an assistant coach in the organization.

It's also been revealed that the assistant coach broke his jaw when Cable punched him, but also threatened his life as well. The case itself has been sent to the Oakland police to see whether or not charges are going to be brought up for the assault.

From recent reports on the situation, it looks like Cable is going to be charged for the assault. I also read that Cable could make a plea deal so that he could avoid jail time. What's interesting is, unlike Jones, Henry, and Lynch, Cable has not been suspended by the NFL.

The question is why? Is it because he's a coach? The alleged incident took place in training camp, so it has been a while since the assault took place. Yet, nothing has happened to Cable, and he's still coaching the Oakland Raiders.

Here's the problem: If it had been a current player that assaulted a teammate, coach, or a fan, he would certainly have been suspended by Goodell, but when it's a coach he just turns a blind eye to it, and will wait to see what happens.

The most recent article with regard to the assault stated who the witnesses of the event were, so it wasn't like it was Cable's word against his assistant. At this point in time, I believe that Goodell has enough evidence to suspend Cable, but he hasn't.

To make matters worse, Cable has denied that he assaulted his assistant, and was quoted saying, "The truth will come out." One of the reasons why Michael Vick was suspended for so long was because he wasn't truthful with Goodell about the dogfighting claim against him.

Now, Goodell is violating his own policies that he put into place to help clean up the league, and because of Goodell's lack of action against Cable, it makes him a hypocrite.