IF I could be NFL Commissioner for one day, it would have been Monday.
Monday was when the NFL was in need of immediate real-deal, at-the-wheel leadership, a day when the ostensible, titular protector of the pro game should have displayed his professionalism and regard for his game and its fans of all ages.
Monday was when I, Roger Goodell, would have stood and publicly apologized for what the NFL has presented as “football” to national audiences since the playoffs began, two week ago:
Every game loaded with dyspeptic antisocial post-play behavior, including innumerable acts of violence that threatened to become riots, and demonstrations of grotesque immodesty, and overt mocks and taunts of opponents.
I would have added that at a time when America now recognizes that we have to do much better in the behavioral prompts delivered to its children, what the NFL delivers — as if conveyer-belted into trucks then delivered, fresh, every weekend — is antithetical to that urgent purpose.
And then, as Goodell For A Day, I would have followed that apology with some no-fooling finger-pointing and desk-banging:
“Every team’s ownership, administration, coaches and players is now on notice: This will no longer be tolerated. Football is neither holy war nor tribal conflagration. It’s a sport — by design an extremely physical and even brutal one, but a sport.
“The offenders, across the board, will no longer be suffered. Mine is not a hollow threat posed as public relations.
“If the AFC and NFC championships and the Super Bowl are to be overwhelmed by penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, ejections and maximum fines of both players and their teams for miscreant behavior, then so be it.
“I have instructed our game officials to flag any and every player who does not obey the play-ending whistle. Post-whistle physical incivility — what TV announcers politely misidentify as ‘chippiness’ — must and will end.
“Further, I have called upon the NFL’s partner TV networks to ask their full and immediate cooperation in this matter. The time to end the wrong-headed, backwards-pointed presentation and promotion of the NFL is today.
“I have requested that the networks, including our NFL Network, cease the glorification of those players who would exploit the game and further desensitize young viewers to display their rank immodesty.
“I’ve urged our contracted networks to cease rewarding the preening, posing, chest-pounding, muscle-flexing, dancing self-aggrandizers with extra attention — especially in slow-motion replays and in week-long promos. What TV now emphasizes as NFL play is as shameful as those who successfully demand TV’s attention.
“Such demonstrations are not representative of the preferred way to play football, or any team sport, nor do they serve the best interests of a society that should recognize, if not reward, the selfless, not the selfish.
“The widespread notion — rationalization — that immodest demonstrations are evidence of ‘natural enthusiasm’ is nonsense. This behavior was learned, copied and worsened by players who first, then increasingly, saw it performed on TV.
“TV must stop promoting the worst behavior of NFL players. Is it a coincidence that many of the NFL’s most penalized, fined and suspended, and its most self-smitten braggarts are selected to serve as TV’s NFL experts?
“Further, for the sake of the future selection of right over wrong, and the future of all who will play or watch football, TV’s see/speak/hear-no-evil pandering must end.
“It is personally and professionally appalling that at least twice this postseason, players, after catching fourth-quarter passes, performed acts of excessive self-approval — while their teams were trailing and soon would lose.
“As appalling, is that neither player was chastised by the TV commentators who watche this happen. Yet, an official perceived to have made a bad call — an honest mistake — will be scolded.
“That young stars and opposing quarterbacks, Colin Kaepernick and Cam Newton, would choose to vandalize a playoff game with demonstrations of their great self-regard and mutual disregard was as disturbing as TV’s indulgence of their childish, churlish, classless misconduct.
“In that regard, I, too, have failed. The NFL has selected — rewarded — some of its worst messengers to serve as the endorsers of licensed merchandise. That will no longer occur on my watch.
“As of today, Monday, I no longer will allow the NFL to sustain its course toward further disrepute and degeneration. Why would I sell to your kids what I would discourage, if not prohibit, in mine?
“The choice of right from wrong is neither radical nor political. It’s an attempt to correct — reverse — wrongheaded values that years ago were allowed to appear, then grow, then be sold as a marketing strategy until the game, especially in its most nationally visible moments, takes on the repugnant characteristics of a nascent street riot, 15, 20 times per game.
“The reprehensible manner in which NFL players, assisted by indulgent coaches and team owners, have this month conducted themselves is not with what I choose to be associated. I could quit or I could fight it. I choose to fight.
“And if you don’t like it, fire me.
“If the active pursuit to instill common sense and common public decency is anathema to the goals and souls of the NFL’s team owners, players, TV and radio networks, licensees, marketing divisions and its fans, then I’m in the wrong job, anyway.
“I will no longer be party — lead party — to such an enterprise. Mark my words: The buck stops here. It stops now! Try me.”
No one to root for in A-Rod mess
That Other Commissioner: CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, perhaps in exchange for access and to serve its chosen course, allowed Bud Selig to continue his bogus revisionism as baseball’s great crusader against drugs, J. Edgar Behoover.
Of Alex Rodriguez’s legal fight to beat his latest drug rap (and sustain millions in salary), Selig said, “In my judgment, his actions were beyond comprehension.
“And I’m somebody who has now been in the game over 50 years.”
Over 50 years, eh? Funny, that would include at least 10 of them when the drug outbreak was obvious to all except those who could be enriched by it.
Gee, who was the commissioner during those wink-and-nod drug-money days?
Now that the inevitable, slow-to-depart days of reckoning have arrived — as if Selig never saw them coming — his self-minted, self-pinned Medal of Valor is a complete con.
Yet, so many in the MLB-obedient, simplistic and often co-opted media swallow it, whole.
Rodriguez vs. MLB? For those who choose to clearly see, there was/is no rooting interest.