Perhaps NFL commissioner Roger Goodell imagines his own legacy as one of a great businessman. He had a product the country was addicted to and managed to extract more cash ($100 billion in media deals over the next decade) out of content-starved networks than others might have in his position. He made the NFL a great deal of money and, for this, should be commended.
That could serve as a useful distraction for the fact that, as a disciplinarian, Goodell, either as the direct overseer of high-profile punishments or as a person of final authority over a disciplinary process, has wholly failed. Whatever flicker of a moral compass existed in this league before his takeover has long been extinguished. And if he fails to act on an appeal for the completely inadequate six-game suspension of Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, he will codify his unenviable legacy.
News of a six-game Deshaun Watson suspension is stunning. It is a third of the length of the yearlong suspension handed down to Falcons receiver Calvin Ridley. Ridley gambled $1,500 on football games via a platform the league profits from and promotes relentlessly. It is less than linebacker Mychal Kendricks received for insider trading. Watson was described as sexually harassing or sexually assaulting more than two dozen women—women who now carry pepper spray to work, women who now fear that anything they wear will be somehow mistaken as a sexual invitation to a powerful client three times their size.
