I'm really not sure how the NFL is supposed to police what these guys do when they're away from the field, but they're finding out now they had better think of something
Ex-FBI director to seek truth: Did NFL lie about Ray Rice video?
Every one of these what-did-he-know-and-when-did-he-know-it type controversies inevitably drifts into speculation about high-level people being forced to resign. The media loves to pursue pounds of flesh, and the more elite the flesh, the better.
It is very hard for me to imagine that the NFL will oust Commissioner Roger Goodell over the Ray Rice investigation. There's no doubt he blew it by imposing only a two-game suspension with his initial verdict, and by changing the punishment when TMZ's release of the security video made the NFL look bad, I'd say he made the situation worse by reacting more out of concern for the league's reputation than out of any real sense of justice.
That said, Goodell's tenure as owner has seen an abundance of prosperity for the league, its owners and its players, and while there surely remain challenges, I cannot imagine the owners are interested in searching for a new commissioner when the one they have has led them to so much success. It's also hard to believe a guy as savvy as Goodell would be stupid enough to lie about not having a video. This is not Hillary Clinton we're talking about.
Still, in the event Robert Mueller's independent investigation does show Goodell lied, the owners would almost have to send him packing, wouldn't they?
A top executive with a third franchise who had spoken to his team’s owner expressed similar sentiments, saying Goodell’s job would be at risk only if it is found that he personally orchestrated a cover-up.
“Certainly he would be [held] accountable for intentionally misleading people and taking actions to cover his tracks,” that executive said. “Certainly that would be grounds for anything from a reprimand to termination. [But] it would take a lot. No one expects it to come to that.”
According to that executive, owners would have little choice but to consider firing Goodell if Mueller’s report concludes that Goodell acted improperly in a significant way.
“The integrity of the league would have to be protected at a certain point,” the executive said, relating what he called the thoughts of that team’s owner. “The trust of the public would have to be maintained. But, again, that’s not the expectation here.”
You can imagine scenarios in which Mueller's team could get the answer fairly easily. Presumably they will search the e-mail and browser histories of all the major principles' computers. If the video was viewed on Goodell's computer and they find it, case closed, right?
But what if Goodell was asked to pop in to someone else's office to look over that person's shoulder and view it? How would you prove that, unless you could find a message on his e-mail saying, "Mr. Commissioner, come into Bob's office right now so we can show you the video of Ray Rice punching his fiancee"?
My best guess at this point - and its only a guess - is that the cop who says he sent the video the NFL is telling the truth, and that whoever received it chose not to show it to Goodell out of some misguided sense of protecting the boss. Another possibility, I suppose, is that the video was sent but didn't go through because the file was too big. You've had that happen, right? You try to e-mail a video but your server rejects the file size and you end up having to FTP it or something like that. Maybe, after the initial attempt to send it via e-mail, no one ever followed up and tried another method.
One thing I am sure of is this: The NFL's owners do not want to get rid of Roger Goodell. Now, at the same time, I can't imagine Robert Mueller took this assignment with the understanding that he's to half-# it and not really pursue the truth. Some skepticism is understandable considering the NFL is paying him, but he has plenty of power to demand full independence, and the owners surely know that if they try to put the clamps on him, he'll go public about that and then they'll be in an even worse fix.
A deeper problem for the NFL, I suspect, is the possibility that this problem is a lot more widespread than just this one incident. If multiple reports start coming out of other players beating up their spouses/fiancees/girlfriends - and you know darn well that every one of them will be treated by the media as huge news - how does the NFL handle that? It's not hard to imagine a game that rewards the controlled perpetration of violence might attract men who are willing to unleash it on the women in their lives, and to be honest we don't really have to imagine it, do we? I'm really not sure how the NFL is supposed to police what these guys do when they're away from the field, but they're finding out now they had better think of something.
