As Super Bowl 50 quickly approaches, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is beginning to make his media rounds, including a stop yesterday on "The Rich Eisen Show." Goodell said the biggest change the league has undergone since the Ray Rice incident is it updated its policies and got the "kind of skill sets, the kind of people, involved with our decision making process that have that kind of expertise." Goodell: "We're no longer completely reliant on law enforcement. We support the work they do, but we have revised our personal conduct policy so that we have our own investigations and we have our own ability to evaluate it against our own personal conduct policy. So it may not be a violation of law, but it may be a violation of our personal conduct policy." He noted there has been a "dramatic change" since that was passed in December '14. Goodell: "This past year we had the lowest level ever, by about 40% reduction in player arrests." He added there is a "tremendous amount of awareness that's happening because of the education that we've been doing with the Players Association, with our teams." Goodell: "People have really understood how to avoid these circumstances, these issues and make good decisions." Meanwhile, Goodell said recent Al Jazeera reports linking Broncos QB Peyton Manning to HGH shipments "involved allegations that we take very seriously." Goodell added that the league is working with law enforcement, USADA and MLB "to make sure that we investigate that seriously, fully, thoughtfully and just like in any investigations we allow the facts to come about." He said, "That's where the focus is right now. We have players, obviously, and others that have committed their full cooperation and that's important in the context of getting to the facts" (“The Rich Eisen Show,” 2/2).
FULL OF HOT AIR? Goodell yesterday announced the NFL "did not keep any of the data on air pressure of footballs that officials were required to log and submit to the league office" during the '15 season. YAHOO SPORTS' Dan Wetzel noted now the Patriots "are no longer able to point to specific, NFL-generated data that proves Ideal Gas Law, not human tampering, caused its footballs to lose air pressure" in the '15 AFC Championship game. That study "was supposed to be the franchise's best chance to introduce new information that might allow the return" of the '16 first- and fourth-round draft picks, plus $1M the league docked it for Deflategate (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 2/2).
SAD ENDING: In N.Y., John Branch reports late NFLer Ken Stabler was found to have "high Stage 3" CTE, making him one of the "highest-profile football players" to have had been diagnosed with the disease. Stabler’s diagnosis "further suggests that no position in football, except perhaps kicker, is immune from progressive brain damage linked to hits to the head, both concussive and subconcussive." A Boston Univ. showed signs of CTE in 90 of 94 former players it has examined, including late Giants S Tyler Sash, "who died in September at age 27 and whose diagnosis was made public last week" (NYTIMES.com, 2/3). Dr. Bennet Omalu, the subject of the recent motion picture "Concussion," said that he believes 90-100% of pro football players "will suffer from CTE.” But Dr. Mitch Berger, the chair for a committee that monitors head injuries for the NFL, said, “That’s a bit of hyperbole, quite honestly. I can’t imagine being the case.” CBS' John Blackstone noted the NFL “over the past decade ... has made dozens of rule changes to reduce the risk” of head trauma (“Evening News,” CBS, 2/2).
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? Jets WR Brandon Marshall said he wonders if there will "even be football in 50 years." He said, "I don’t think it’s because of the players and the league, but it’s the outside forces. Everything from our government and doctors trying to take our game down.” Showtime’s Phil Simms said, “People come up and go, ‘Football keeps getting bigger. When is it going to stop?’ I don’t ever see it stopping. … I know there’s people worried about the health, but the game’s just going to keep getting bigger and bigger” (“Inside the NFL,” Showtime, 2/2).
