guy makes $50mil for playing a game criticizes $20mil/year to guy who helps it happen

[SteveSmithOwns]

lol "all the players demands." I'm not going to bother with someone who's still ignorant of the timeline of events.

lol, so your not going to answer my question? figures

it boils down to this. Goodell got the most money he could out of the CBA while still playing football. He has to please his 'bosses' which are the NFL owners. And his bosses are the ones who are paying him that much, so they obviously think he deserves it.

[dimbee]

lol "his climb."

he went right out of his hoity toity private college into an internship with pete rozelle because his dad was a us senator, then just sorta hung around for 26 years until he had enough swag to be put in control.

The only way he could have worked less was if he was born commissioner. Get your facts straight.

lol

[Fiz]

lol, so your not going to answer my question? figures

wait you actually expect me to educate you on the entire 2011 nfl lockout?

i wrote paper bricks on this forum about the lockout. feel free to read any of them.

[Fiz]

"ha, you mean I'm so stupid you can't even find a starting point with me?

OWNED GOOD SIR! I'll be rolling in my filth when you're ready to parlay with me."

[The Saltman]

Fiz loves these types of threads.

[bleys]

Goodell put the defense at a major disadvantage when even clean hits have been called for 15 yard penalties. The game has been extremely watered down. NFL was trending before his time and opening up the offense happened before his time.

on top of that QBs might as wear flags, kickoffs are a joke, and more offensive players are going to face season ending knee injuries since more defensive players are tackling low (avoiding a bullpoo 15 yard penalty for even clean hits).

so what exactly has Goodell done to reign in all these fans? He hasn't, and I don't hear anyone raving over all the ways these changes have affected the game.. it's actually quite the opposite from the everyday fan to former/current players.. I find it hard to believe anyone would dispute this without pulling your dick out of his ass first..

[bleys]

Goodell put the defense at a major disadvantage when even clean hits have been called for 15 yard penalties. The game has been extremely watered down. NFL was trending before his time and opening up the offense happened before his time.

on top of that QBs might as wear flags, kickoffs are a joke, and more offensive players are going to face season ending knee injuries since more defensive players are tackling low (avoiding a bullpoo 15 yard penalty for even clean hits).

so what exactly has Goodell done to reign in all these fans? He hasn't, and I don't hear anyone raving over all the ways these changes have made the game better.. it's actually quite the opposite from the everyday fan to former/current players.. I find it hard to believe anyone would dispute this without pulling his dick out of your ass first..

[SteveSmithOwns]

wait you actually expect me to educate you on the entire 2011 nfl lockout?

i wrote paper bricks on this forum about the lockout. feel free to read any of them.

the question was never about the lockout. the question was how did you expect Goodell to handle it? Again, he is forced to do what his bosses wanted him to do. It's like any other job in America. If you really want to blame somebody for the lockout, blame the owners.

[theyhateme45]

lol "his climb."

He went right out of his hoity toity private college into an internship with Pete Rozelle because his dad was a US Senator, then just sorta hung around for 26 years until he had enough swag to be put in control.

The only way he could have worked less was if he was born commissioner. Get your facts straight.

That is your opinion and speculations. There are no facts that you presented that I need to get straight. Speculating that he worked little, and did nothing to achieve his title as it was just handed to him is 100% your opinion. You are entitled to that opinion, but unless you have some employee evaluation reviews, you can source someone who was his direct superior and they told you this, or some other form of evidence, then your speculations have no facts to them at all.

You want to believe everything was handed to him fine... I would believe that if he became president of a company own by his dad and handed down to him.

I have been in the corporate world and have benefited at times from high connections. It's my opinion that connections can get you in to the door. But if you do not perform on your job, and excel above others that have the same goals as you then people are not going to just give you new responsibilities, promotions, and titles just because you sat there and did nothing. I'm sure Roger was not the only person who could of had a connection to get him a start in the NFL, but he is the only one sitting as commissioner today while everyone else who may have a connection is not.

[bleys]

I have been in the corporate world and have benefited at times from high connections. It's my opinion that connections can get you in to the door. But if you do not perform on your job, and excel above others that have the same goals as you then people are not going to just give you new responsibilities, promotions, and titles just because you sat there and did nothing. I'm sure Roger was not the only person who could of had a connection to get him a start in the NFL, but he is the only one sitting as commissioner today while everyone else who may have a connection is not.

and yet the quality of this sport has been watered down every year since... good point.

[theyhateme45]

and yet the quality of this sport has been watered down every year since... good point.

FYI- The point of that sentence was to emphasis that just because someone may have a connection to get in the door, it does not guarantee them a commissioner’s job. 32 owners are only going to go with the person who they believe does a good job in doing what they can to get them the $$$ they expect.

Saying the quality of the sport has been watered down is an opinion. Nothing wrong with having that opinion, but that is all it is. I’m sure you could make a list of valid points as to why you feel the way you do, and I can make points from a different perspective that lists valid points that supports the opposite.

For example I can say the NFL continues to generate top viewer interest, and command top dollars for their TV contracts. Got a deal with another 10 years of labor peace with no missed games. Also he reports and work for the owners of the NFL. It can be argued that all these rule changes and emphasis on safety is so that they can come back a few years down the road and add more regular season games meaning more $$$$ for all of the owners. So while people and players may not like him as a commissioner, the only people who matters in terms of his job performance are the owners and we need to look it from their perspective when evaluating him since that is the role of his position.

Personally, there are decisions regarding the game I disagree with, but that is from my personal perspective as a selfish fan wanting what I want the way I want it. But if I evaluate his decisions from a owners perspective then I tend to see the reasoning behind those decisions.

[Fiz]

the question was never about the lockout. the question was how did you expect Goodell to handle it?

I expected him to do it because he's incompetent.

Now how should he have done it?

First of all you need to divorce yourself from the notion he has to do what his bosses want. He's the commissioner and isn't a CEO. It's his job to listen to 31 owners and try to figure out what's best for all of them.

The second thing you need to realize is that not all owners wanted a lock out. Not even close. The owners aren't some single minded entity. they all exist in different financial and strategic realities. I don't want to belabor this point, so I'll just give a quick example. Bob Kraft has investments (awful ones quite frequently) that make more money than his NFL franchise. He can afford not to have a season. Compare that with the Glazers, for example, who literally have angry Manchester United fans at the gates, and who wouldn't be able to run their pet franchise without revenue sharing.

There is a serious split in the ownership group, or power blocs, as you'd imagine. This is shown by goodell originally only getting like 12 of 30 votes to be commissioner. there were three run off elections, with him finally buying enough votes to get the job.

Now, let's imagine for a second that he is actually justified in locking out the players. That

1. a lockout was the only option (it wasn't)

2. that it was unavoidable (it wasn't.)

3. that they hadn't planned it (they had. just look at the details of the last labor agreement, which was about a whole different issue related to the Maras specifically, that Ralph Wilson had refused to sign because it was bullpoo)

If you assume all those wrong things and accept that he was justified in doing it, then you plan how to do it.

First of all, you don't put yourself in a situation where the union can simply decertify and blow out your anti trust exemption, taking away any legal footing. This wasn't a surprise. In fact, I predicted it would happen months before it did, as many people here can probably attest. That of course happened.

Second of all, you don't claim financial hardship, then refuse to open your books. To bring this close to home, George Shinn tried to do this and was laughed out of the city.

third of all, you don't bank of television revenue that no one actually though they'd be allowed to keep. The owners for some reason thought they'd still get their TV money if the whole season was locked out, which predictably the courts declined.

fourth, you don't demand an 18 game schedule. Almost no fans are in favor of this for obvious reasons that I don't think I need to go into.

fifth, you recognize that DeMaurice Smith is a former fed who probably has a damn good idea how the proceedings are going to go.

He bungled it from the start, and after it immediately went south, the owners began to break up. This is just now starting to come out, but there are numerous stories about Jerry Jones making snide remarks at owners like Paul Brown, since what they wanted out of it was completely different than what say Paul Allen wanted.

One of the contentions by high-revenue teams, such as the Cowboys, was lower-revenue clubs like the Bengals don't work hard enough to create revenue. At one point during the often contentious negotiations, the Boston Globe reported, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones mockingly offered to buy the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium for $5 million. Jones said, "I can double that in about five minutes, Mike." Mike Brown, reportedly, did not respond.

-- Cincinnati Enquirer

He was the one that pushed for the lockout as the best means to move forward, unlike the last time the CBA was slated to expire, which was solved without denying players medical access.

The only real thing that happened, aside from some different practice scheduling (which honestly probably needed to happen) was the rookie salary cap, which the players union was tacitly in favor of anyway. He took a hard stance and got embarrassed.

Now maybe on some meta level he did it to keep the interest in the NFL during the offseason, as I've heard people mention, but I doubt that was true.

[Fiz]

I'd really like to do a breakdown of all the NFL owners, how much the game has changed due to the influx of new money, and how the old football families (Rooney, Mara, Wilson, Adams) are hanging on by a thread, but man this isn't the forum for it.

[Fiz]

Also I need to write a post about how the OUT OF CONTROL ROOKIE SALARIES was actually total bullshit but meh