NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "was hardly a blip on the pregame radar" yesterday, and the "Tom Brady vs. NFL story was mentioned briefly when the shows did their offseason-in-review pieces," according to Bob Raissman of the N.Y. DAILY NEWS. This coverage "was no conspiracy between the NFL and its network partners." Rather, these "were singular decisions based on 1) the notion that viewers see opening Sunday as a holiday, a celebration of the NFL. ... And 2) none of the TV suits who do business with the commish want to mess with him." With the "heat already on Goodell, the TV suits’ prudent course of action was to go in the tank for him." Of the pregame shows, "Fox NFL Sunday" came "the closest to gazing into Goodell’s future, or lack there of." Host Curt Menefee asked the panel: “Has commissioner Goodell lost some of his juice by losing five consecutive (court) cases?" Raissmann: "Otherwise it was all smooth TV sailing for the Jolly Roger" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 9/14). Fox’ Jimmy Johnson said he believed Goodell was influenced by several team owners "to hand out some ridiculous penalties.” Fox’ Michael Strahan said, “I think it was from the owners who got beat by the Patriots. But more so, some of the things that the commissioner has gone through with the Ray Rice case and some of the criticisms that made him really have to step up and do something a little more harsher than I think we all felt should have happened.” Fox’ Terry Bradshaw: “I thought the whole thing was ridiculous" (“Fox NFL Sunday,” Fox, 9/13).
CIVIL OBEDIENCE? SI.com's Richard Deitsch asked, "How critical can the NFL’s broadcast partners be of Roger Goodell?" CBS Sports Chair Sean McManus said, "I don’t see our job as being critical. I see our job as letting our analysts express their opinions, and if they have negative opinions on something the NFL has done or something Roger has done, they are free to express that opinion. We don’t put any kind of limitations on them." Fox Sports President & COO Eric Shanks said, "We don’t ever dictate or give guidelines to announcers to what they can and can’t say." ESPN "MNF" VP/Production Jay Rothman: "I don't think we’re out there to blast Roger or blast the NFL. We’re there to cover a football game. But if there are things that we don’t agree with and Mike [Tirico] and Jon [Gruden] don’t agree with, we certainly encourage them to have the forum to express that." NBC Sports Coordinating Producer Fred Gaudelli said, "There is no question it is a delicate balance but I can tell you Roger Goodell has never called me and said, ‘Why did you do that?’ Nor have any of his assistants or people like that at the league level" (SI.com, 9/13).
