Friday's Special Guest Blog

As an added feature to my blog I have asked a few select guests from around the country to contribute for the weekend. Here is the first from Jeff Davis:

The NFL does not make many mistakes, but when they do it is always a "doozie." SPYGATE falls within that category and was the first major catastrophe faced by their new commissioner. I asked my friend Jeff Davis, the author of the best seller, and highly respected, "ROZELLE - The Czar of the NFL," for his thoughts on this on-going and volatile subject.



Rozelle v. Goodell – How to Handle a Scandal
By Jeff Davis

It’s pure and so simple. The way a commissioner handles his first major crisis not only defines his term in office, but the way his league will operate in the public marketplace.

Pete Rozelle, the man who built the NFL into a multi-billion dollar business easily coped with trouble because he liked and understood the role of the media and valued the public’s need to know as well. That was borne out by the way he tackled his first crisis in 1963, when he was confronted with evidence on several levels that two of the game’s larger than life stars, Green Bay Packers Golden Boy Paul Hornung and Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras had been betting on games.

Rozelle conducted a thorough investigation, and got the facts. The other shoe dropped on April 16, 1963 when he announced he was suspending both players indefinitely for betting on games. He stressed that no player, especially Hornung and Karras, had done anything to rig the outcome of a game, either by throwing one or shaving points.

That move reassured the public that the commissioner was properly policing the sport. . The suspensions told everyone that he meant business. And, when he reinstated both men eleven months later, Rozelle let the public know that rehabilitation was possible. Textbook crisis management.
Roger Goodell, the current NFL czar, THINKS he knows what he’s doing, but his actions in the “Spygate” case involving the hubris-filled New England Patriots and their powerful owner Bob Kraft and brighter-than-thou coach Bill Belechick, vividly demonstrate otherwise. Goodell is served by media advisers who hate and distrust the press as they hold the public in disdain. It’s a lethal combination that could undo his nascent regime
Goodell could have hit the jackpot last September when the New York Jets caught the New England Patriots taping their defensive signals. That maneuver, ordered by Pats coach Bill Belichick, allowed his video crew to match game footage with the sideline signals. By halftime, he could make winning adjustments in full awareness of what the opponent would do next. That was out and out cheating.

Then, the commissioner acted. He fined Belichick $500,000, the largest in history against an NFL coach. Belechick apologized in a manner of speaking to his team and owner for embarrassing them. To be accurate he should have said, he was sorry he got caught. Unbelievably, . Goodell, , unlike Rozelle who suspended his two great stars Hornung and Karras, said the fine was punishment enough. Goodell did nail the team for another $250,000, pin money in today’s accounting, and took away one of the Pats’ two first round draft choices. Patriots owner Bob Kraft refused to comment. Oh, yes, Goodell had the tapes in question confiscated.

Goodell’s solution: fines, no suspensions, and loss of a pick, were slaps on the wrist. Then he revealed that the league had DESTROYED the evidence, the tapes on the ridiculous grounds that the media might get hold of them. So much for transparency. That was manifested when it was revealed that Goodell never interviewed former video assistant Matt Walsh about the practices that went back to his taping the St. Louis Rams in a pre-game walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI.

Two things become evident. Rozelle got the news out through the media to the public as fast as he could and he did not conduct a coverup in the cases of Hornung and Karras. In addition Goodell , by his actions in not handling this matter correctly has inadvertently invited Congress in the form of Sen. Arlen Specter to investigate the league – which is bound to endanger the anti-trust exemptions Pete Rozelle labored so hard and valiantly to get. Those exemptions created the NFL money machine that rules all of sports.

Goodell, has enmeshed himself in a web of deceit that still has not unraveled. And we all know what happens when cover-ups ensue. Just ask those involved in the granddaddy of all “Gates.” Remember? It was called “Watergate.”