League frightened that Richardson may be the first of many

[Mr. Scot]

This won't exactly come as a shock to many people, but the NFL is afraid more scandals like the Richardson story are on the horizon.

Quote

 

“I learned the Jerry Richardson problem is not over,” Leibovich writes. “There is real concern that Jerry Richardson is the tip of the iceberg. With obscenely rich and powerful and aggressive people like NFL owners, there can be a commonness of not only acting in a brutish and entitled way, but also, simply, of being able to pay people off when they try to speak out. Needless to say, Richardson has no monopoly inside the membership on having engaged in outdated behavior. I think there will be other cases. The league fears there will be others.”

Settlement agreements, coupled with confidentiality provisions, have become commonplace in corporate America. Companies offer to cut a check to a potentially disgruntled employee in exchange for peace and, more importantly, silence. The Richardson case proves that the silence may not be permanent. The consequences of that silence being broken can be.

 

NFL fears Richardson situation is the tip of the iceberg

Pretty sure it wasn't an accident that PFT juxtaposed this article with a picture of Jerry Jones.  If we were to take bets on who's next, Jones would likely be the leader in the clubhouse.

I would add that the "What I learned" section of the  Peter King column that this was pulled from (link) is worth a read in itself, especially for a pretty fascinating take on Roger Goodell.

Quote

“I learned that Roger Goodell is very damaged, a deeply unpopular leader not only among players and fans but in the country at large. That is a big problem for the league, and every owner knows it. Roger is capable of incredible humanity, but there is a huge gap between the Roger Goodell as a human being and the cold Roger Goodell at the podium. He’s sort of straightjacketed, and he creates this very scared dynamic around the league. I don’t think he realizes how jarring it is. The league has no clue how to deal with it. I don’t think he wants to hear that, though. He can be diplomatic, like with the anthem issue last year. The league basically rode that thing out. They knew Trump would pipe up again, but Goodell brought players and owners together. Then for whatever reason, he flipped in May and ham-handed a solution no one but a handful of the owners was happy with.

 

[Gregg S]

So, what will be the ramifications to the league if this proves to be true?  Will we have a string of owners being forced to sell their teams?  If the Richardson case is just the "tip of the iceberg", doesn't that imply that the majority of the team owners are guilty of the same or worse behavior?  I think that's what the article does allude to.  This would certainly cause a huge amount of chaos within the league as teams try to sell and acclimate to new ownership.  And just how many billionaires are there that would be interested or even capable of buying a team?  I would think the number would be rather low.  We certainly didn't see a huge rush of them trying to buy the Panthers.  

But I will say this.  From what I've seen of Tepper so far, I'm rather glad that we had to go thru this first.  It appears so far that we got an excellent owner that cares about winning.  No telling what we may have ended up with if we had to be dragged into a quagmire of teams having to find a buyer if this does explode into a clusterf**k.

[Tbe]

Like this...

[Mr. Scot]

3 minutes ago, Gregg S said:

So, what will be the ramifications to the league if this proves to be true?  Will we have a string of owners being forced to sell their teams?  If the Richardson case is just the "tip of the iceberg", doesn't that imply that the majority of the team owners are guilty of the same or worse behavior?  I think that's what the article does allude to.  This would certainly cause a huge amount of chaos within the league as teams try to sell and acclimate to new ownership.  And just how many billionaires are there that would be interested or even capable of buying a team?  I would think the number would be rather low.  We certainly didn't see a huge rush of them trying to buy the Panthers.  

But I will say this.  From what I've seen of Tepper so far, I'm rather glad that we had to go thru this first.  It appears so far that we got an excellent owner that cares about winning.  No telling what we may have ended up with if we had to be dragged into a quagmire of teams having to find a buyer if this does explode into a clusterf**k.

Hard to imagine what a huge turnover in league ownership might look like. 

And no, it's not like there are hundreds of people out there with the finances to buy an NFL team.  Especially true when you consider that the Panthers just sold for a record amount yet other teams with possible sales on the horizon might go for even higher.

I don't know if the kind of mess they fear is actually going to emerge, but I have little doubt the NFL is quaking in their boots at the prospect. It's definitely possible that #metoo could really bite the league on the ass.

[CatTower]

9 minutes ago, Tbe said:

Like this...

 

Well these women obviously look like paid(cash or drugs) prostitutes.  So, while Jones does look like a greaseball, I don't think it's safe to make the jump to Richardson level of debauchery. 

[Tbe]

Just now, CatTower said:

 

Well these women obviously look like paid(cash or drugs) prostitutes.  So, while Jones does look like a greaseball, I don't think it's safe to make the jump to Richardson level of debauchery. 

Ha... I know. But I’m sure he’s done much more than this.

[Mr. Scot]

Yeah, I think a solid majority of people believe Jerry Jones has taken part in a few "shenanigans" in his time.

That said, Jones is a far more powerful figure in Texas than Richardson ever was in North Carolina.  It'd take a lot of guts for anyone to fight him.

[Greatman77]

There is no way the league could force Jerry to sell the Cowboys. He would sue everyone in the USA.

[RumHam]

21 minutes ago, Tbe said:

Like this...

this is what i came here for

[Mr. Scot]

9 minutes ago, Greatman77 said:

There is no way the league could force Jerry to sell the Cowboys. He would sue everyone in the USA.

The league didn't "officially" force Richardson  to sell (even if they really did).

But yeah, Jones would certainly not go quietly. And there are probably enough rabid Cowboy fans out there to make the whole thing a PR nightmare for the league.

[FakePlasticTrees]

I question the ability of the NFL to fine a team owner and collect the money for such activity.  They can fine players for certain activities because the collective bargaining agreement allows it. When the NFL fines an owner it is more analogous to an organization fining themselves. Thus, if Richardson does not pay the fine I have my doubts that a lawsuit against him by the NFL would be successful. The owners are the NFL.

The fact that someone at the NFL offices leaked this information would make me livid as an owner. Furthermore, this smells like a power play the league office. I do not think it is pure coincidence that this information gets leaked soon after Roger Goodell's new contract is finalized and he was openly criticized by Jerry Jones.

If I was an NFL owner I would want answers. For that matter, I would love to know who pulled the wool over the team's eyes when it came to some of the more recent under the radar rule changes. Had the NFL been open about these changes, I highly doubt that they would have passed. Now that they have passed it is much more complicated to change them again. 

 

[Mr. Scot]

The owners have legal agreements that they're forced to abide by too.

As to the story, it wasn't actually "leaked". It's the observation of a reporter who spent four years basically embedded within the league offices.

[LinvilleGorge]

Rich and powerful people often use this to throw their weight around and act like everyone else just exists to serve their needs and desires? People are surprised by this now? It's only been happening since the dawn of civilization.

[Mr. Scot]

3 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Rich and powerful people often use this to throw their weight around and act like everyone else just exists to serve their needs and desires? People are surprised by this now? It's only been happening since the dawn of civilization.

I don't know if anybody's really surprised by the notion. I do think the owners themselves may be a little "surprised" at the fact that, in the digital age, it's a lot tougher to hide a multitude of sins than it used to be.

The internet and social media are hugely flawed entities, but the fact that it's now tougher for scumbags to hide their scumbag behavior isn't such a bad thing.

(the flipside of course being that false accusations of people being scumbags can now be distributed to a broader audience than ever before)