NFL Blog-Nathan Winegardner REVISED

Roger Goodell Makes the Wrong Move

As many might know the NFL has been struggling with domestic violence issues for the past few months. And with all this attention on the NFL people are now starting to be scrutinized for the lack of effort to prevent this kind of behavior.


Rodger Goodell announced Tuesday November, 18th that Adrian Peterson is now suspended from the NFL until next year. After breaking the NFL's Personal Conduct policy.

 Goodell has taken upon himself to try and fix the NFL single handedly, but it cannot be done and shouldn't be done.

Goodell is pushing this situation so hard in order to protect his own reputation, and the leagues, not Adrian Peterson's. If another domestic violence issue were to pop up today I believe that the first questions he would ask would be "Is there a video? Are there pictures? Who knows about this?" all of these questions would be to defend himself instead of asking the important questions like, "Is the victim okay?, How is the family doing?, What can I do to help?". He needs to put more interest into others and less of himself if he hopes to keep the good wishes of the fans. The laidback approach he is taking to these matters is concerning to many people, parents do not want their young children to seeing this behavior as acceptable and the commissioner is the one responsible for the actions of his players.

Roger Goodell has stuck himself between a rock and a hard place. He understands that these types if incidents can be a career killer, and that is what scares him the most. There are appropriate ways of solving such matters but Goodell has not uses any of them. Goodell is treating Peterson as if he were a child stating, "We are prepared to put in place a program that can help you to succeed, but no program can succeed without your genuine and continuing engagement...You must commit yourself to your counseling and rehabilitative effort," What? The problem goes much further than just the players actions. The administrative part of the NFL including the commissioner is just as much at fault. Both the accused player and the NFL should work together in order to solve these problems instead of just pointing fingers at one another.

Adrian is not a young boy that needs a "timeout" or that needs to go see the "principals office" nor is he a mentally unstable person that needs to be put in programs and activities that will make him better. He was disciplining his child, granted he might have not done it in the incorrect fashion but he maid a mistake, and I can guarantee that there are much worse things going on in the league that they could be paying attention to. A mistake such as this does not fit the punishments Goodell has place upon him.

I understand that Goodell is trying to make a point to the rest of the league that if you do break this conduct policy (keep in mind they have not even finalized this new policy) that there will be severe consequences. And this is a great move but using Peterson as an example to the league was a poor decision. Peterson is a well respected member of the football community and with the past negative public relations that Goodell has put on himself attacking Peterson only added to this. The reason he jumped on this so quickly was because of the NFL's poor public relations he moved so fast that he neglected to see the flaws in his own logic.

Goodell has been hiding scandals his whole career, especially when it comes to domestic violence crimes. As Dave Zirin a reporter for The Nation states," During his tenure, fifty-six players were arrested on domestic violence charges, and have been suspended for a combined thirteen games." This is a remarkable number taking the fact that Adrian Peterson will end up missing fifteen games for one small mistake that he made. Goodell is in the wrong when it comes to how he dealt with Petersons case. The NFL needs to start moving in the right direction in order to retain the integrity that many fans support. For Goodell's sake I hope when the NFLPA appeals this verdict that he reconsiders what he as done, because many are now asking if Roger Goodell is the best choice for commissioner of the NFL. 

 http://www.thenation.com/blog/181608/why-nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-must-go-and-who-should-replace-him#

http://boston.barstoolsports.com/random-thoughts/roger-goodell-lecturing-adrian-peterson-about-morals-made-me-puke/


http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/11/18/7188877/adrian-peterson-reinstatement-denied-nfl-2014-season

http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2014-11-18/roger-goodell-power-discipline-adrian-peterson-suspension-appeal-union-ray-rice-neutral-arbitrator?eadid=SOC/Twi/SNMain

http://www.rantsports.com/nfl/2014/11/18/roger-goodell-makes-right-move-in-suspending-adrian-peterson/