Good One, Goodell
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Adam "Pac-Man" Jones for one year...to the sound of secret applause from owners, coaches, and, somewhat not surprisingly, the players themselves.
No one is being quoted directly, mind you, but no one has to be: this situation practically adjudicated itself.
For anyone who might be worried about whether or not this is fair to Pac-Man, as certain of his hangers-on, er, relatives are, I have but two, no, four words: shut the hell up.
As anyone with a prefrontal lobe can tell you, playing in the NFL is not anyone's God-given right, but rather a special privilege that carries its own unique rewards, not the least of which is the adulation of children. More than that, this is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, an empire on which the sun never sets, a very public venture that depends upon the goodwill of its fans for its lifeblood, so maintaining the correct image is very important.
Thus, it is nigh unto impossible for the commissioner to do anything less than he did, because Pac-Man's actions are only the tip of the iceberg. The Chicago Bears, recently of the Super Bowl, have seen one of their defensive lineman (the lamentable Tank Johnson) go to prison for four months, probably because his being so grossly stupid isn't penalized worse in Illinois. The Cincinnati Jailbirds, er, Bengals, had a conga line of players going into and out of the lockup for the last 18 months, with bandleader Chris Henry leading the way; Henry, to his credit, has more arrests and violations than touchdowns.
And then there's Pac-Man. The NBA All-Star Weekend was held in Las Vegas (!!) for the first time ever, as made for TV as any sporting event possibly could be, only to get upstaged by an NFL player's antics during what was his offseason. But then again, when an NFL player is involved in a shootout in a strip club that involved garbage bags full of money that he never intended to give away, and when a man is left paralyzed as a result of that shootout, and when women were beaten as a result of that shootout, and when the LVPD have Gil Grissom and the CSI gang pursuing felony charges against him, well, it's tough to care about the Slam Dunk Championship.
No league wants that kind of publicity.
Now, keep in mind, nothing has been decided in Vegas just yet. There are still legal hoops to jump through, and it may turn out that Pac-Man won't be charged with anything at all...or, it may be that he will be charged with a felony.
Still, this is about image. The league can't have its star players in this kind of trouble because there is no such thing as a cooperative press anymore. Back in the old days, writers knew about the sins of greats like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, and they chose not to write about them for reasons personal as well as social. But now, we live in the age of Woodward and Bernstein, and Bouton's "Ball Four." Nothing is sacred anymore. News outlets race to report the latest transgressions, lest they appear to be pandering to the players. Consider the old Oakland Raiders of John Matuzak and Otis Sistrunk and Kenny Stabler. Goodell might have had to suspend the lot of them had the press operated in 1974 the way it does now.
That's the thing that Pac-Man just doesn't get. His on-field production was nothing less than stellar. But even in a "just win" league, his off-field issues are blacking the eyes of more than just himself and his team, but the whole league.
And here's one more thing for him to think about: if he tries suing the NFL, well, his pockets had better be deeper than the garbage bags of cash he took into that Vegas strip club, because the NFL is lawyered up from here to Kingdom Come.
It sez so right here that those very lawyers were consulted before the commish made the only common sense move that he could make. That, in itself, should give him pause.
Good move, Mr. Goodell.
No one is being quoted directly, mind you, but no one has to be: this situation practically adjudicated itself.
For anyone who might be worried about whether or not this is fair to Pac-Man, as certain of his hangers-on, er, relatives are, I have but two, no, four words: shut the hell up.
As anyone with a prefrontal lobe can tell you, playing in the NFL is not anyone's God-given right, but rather a special privilege that carries its own unique rewards, not the least of which is the adulation of children. More than that, this is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, an empire on which the sun never sets, a very public venture that depends upon the goodwill of its fans for its lifeblood, so maintaining the correct image is very important.
Thus, it is nigh unto impossible for the commissioner to do anything less than he did, because Pac-Man's actions are only the tip of the iceberg. The Chicago Bears, recently of the Super Bowl, have seen one of their defensive lineman (the lamentable Tank Johnson) go to prison for four months, probably because his being so grossly stupid isn't penalized worse in Illinois. The Cincinnati Jailbirds, er, Bengals, had a conga line of players going into and out of the lockup for the last 18 months, with bandleader Chris Henry leading the way; Henry, to his credit, has more arrests and violations than touchdowns.
And then there's Pac-Man. The NBA All-Star Weekend was held in Las Vegas (!!) for the first time ever, as made for TV as any sporting event possibly could be, only to get upstaged by an NFL player's antics during what was his offseason. But then again, when an NFL player is involved in a shootout in a strip club that involved garbage bags full of money that he never intended to give away, and when a man is left paralyzed as a result of that shootout, and when women were beaten as a result of that shootout, and when the LVPD have Gil Grissom and the CSI gang pursuing felony charges against him, well, it's tough to care about the Slam Dunk Championship.
No league wants that kind of publicity.
Now, keep in mind, nothing has been decided in Vegas just yet. There are still legal hoops to jump through, and it may turn out that Pac-Man won't be charged with anything at all...or, it may be that he will be charged with a felony.
Still, this is about image. The league can't have its star players in this kind of trouble because there is no such thing as a cooperative press anymore. Back in the old days, writers knew about the sins of greats like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, and they chose not to write about them for reasons personal as well as social. But now, we live in the age of Woodward and Bernstein, and Bouton's "Ball Four." Nothing is sacred anymore. News outlets race to report the latest transgressions, lest they appear to be pandering to the players. Consider the old Oakland Raiders of John Matuzak and Otis Sistrunk and Kenny Stabler. Goodell might have had to suspend the lot of them had the press operated in 1974 the way it does now.
That's the thing that Pac-Man just doesn't get. His on-field production was nothing less than stellar. But even in a "just win" league, his off-field issues are blacking the eyes of more than just himself and his team, but the whole league.
And here's one more thing for him to think about: if he tries suing the NFL, well, his pockets had better be deeper than the garbage bags of cash he took into that Vegas strip club, because the NFL is lawyered up from here to Kingdom Come.
It sez so right here that those very lawyers were consulted before the commish made the only common sense move that he could make. That, in itself, should give him pause.
Good move, Mr. Goodell.
posted by van walker | 2:55 AM
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