Kraft deserves scrutiny for tone-deaf defense of Goodell
It's also easy to see why NFL commissioner Roger Goodell finds himself the most reviled figure in sports today. Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice case was botched from the start, and the embattled commissioner has now painted himself into an unenviable corner: either his investigation was too incompetent to get its hands on the readily available security footage from that infamous elevator, or he saw the tape and deemed Rice's vicious uppercut to his then-fiance's jaw was only worthy of a two game suspension (or two games less than the going rate for adderal).
Goodell is no stranger to making unpopular, tone-deaf decisions, and in fact has repeatedly gotten away with them with no meaningful (i.e. financial) ramifications to the shield he so vehemently defends. One merely needs to look at the 2012 replacement refs fiasco to see how little Goodell has cared about the opinion of NFL fans, as it took an embarrasing, game-deciding blown call on national TV for the league to finally relent on its penny pinching lock-out of it's qualified officials.
However, his handling of the Rice case has been such a colossal failure, with each mishap and lie somehow worse than the last, that pressure is increasing for his ouster from the commissioner's office. His actions leave him with zero credibility, even if an "impartial investigation" from former FBI director Robert Mueller III (who once helped the league negotiate it's lucrative contract with DirecTV) and overseen by long-time Goodell allies Art Rooney and John Mara declares that there's nothing to see here.
This brings us to Kraft, who passionately defended the commissioner during an appearance on CBS This Morning on Tuesday, just a day after TMZ released the security footage that confirmed what anyone with a functional brain already knew had happened in that elevator.
"The way he has handled this situation himself, coming out with the mea culpa in his statement a couple weeks ago, or 10 days ago, and setting a very clear policy of how we conduct ourselves in the NFL, I thought was excellent. Anyone who is second guessing that doesn't know him."
"OK, I don't want to get in the role of law enforcement or things I don't understand. It's just -- the good news is, people did the right thing. When you see that visually, it's just such a turnoff, and I hope a great lesson to people everywhere that this isn't going to be tolerated."
Kraft didn't make his estimated fortune of $2.9 billion by being stupid, which is why it's somewhat confusing to see him hitching his wagon to Goodell's sinking reputation. Either Kraft is naive enough to believe Goodell's assertion that no one in the NFL had seen the elevator footage, a laughable claim that has since been refuted by an AP report, or he thinks we're all naive enough to buy the lies.
Either way, it's a very bad look for Kraft; one that looks even worse considering how outspoken his deceased wife Myra was on cases of violence against women. Remember, it was reportedly Myra who insisted the team relinquish it's draft rights to defensive tackle Christian Peter back in 1996, merely weeks after making the Nebraska All-American a fifth round pick, due to Peter's lengthy history of violence towards women.
Not to mention the fact that it shouldn't have taken the release of that video and, more importantly from the NFL's perspective, the massive public outcry that followed, for the the commissioner to do the right thing. Goodell has had six and a half months to do the right thing, and either ignored the evidence or didn't seek it. The fact that it took a debacle of this magnitude for the league to "do the right thing" isn't something to be celebrated. It's a fucking embarrassment.
Also concerning is the fact that Kraft's comments speak to a level of cronyism between the NFL owners and league office; something which has been a major factor in the league's disciplinary system becoming as corrupt and incompetent as it has.
Under Goodell's watch, the league has claimed to emphasize player safety while simultaneously pushing for an 18 game season. It locked-out it's officials over their pension plans, a moved that dramatically tarnished the quality of it's product, despite the battle being over a miniscule amount of money for a billion-dollar a year business. It has continued to employ a disciplinary system that essentially allows Goodell to rule with an iron fist, doling out punishment on a whim with little-to-no checks or balances to his power. Throughout it all, the owners have stood behind Goodell, no matter how unpopular these decisions have been with fans, likely because the profits have never stopped growing.
That support has run both ways as well. Lets not forget Goodell's laughable punishment of Colts owner Jim Irsay, a billionaire who was given a meaningless suspension and fined less ($500,000) for driving a car filled with narcotics and cash at close to this level of intoxication than Wes Welker will lose for testing positive for amphetamines a full four months before the start of the season. Nevermind that the only performance Welker's alleged drug use enhanced was his ability to hand out $100 bills at the Kentuckey Derby.
Kraft has long been revered as one of the league's most powerful and influential owners. If anyone has the clout to prod his fellow owners to reluctantly do the right thing and vote Goodell out, it's Kraft. Instead, he remains in steadfast support of the commisioner, either blind or apathetic to how pathetic that stance comes across to fans everywhere.
Kraft has long talked about standards of accountability and character being key components of his Patriots franchise. It's about time that he applied those standards to Goodell, who will likely make over $44 million this year despite doing more damage to the mythical "shield's" reputation in the past week than any player ever could.
Anything short of that, to use Kraft's words, would be "such a turn-off".
