The NFL has been in the public eye for the better part of three weeks and it has nothing to do with the games going on every week. A number of issues involving domestic violence and child abuse have reared their heads in the past couple of weeks involving big-name players, and the NFL’s handling of these situations has come into question.
After being silent for over a week, Commissioner Roger Goodell finally spoke in public in an attempt to address all of the issues surrounding the NFL via ESPN:
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Friday there have been too many recent examples of the NFL “doing wrong” and “that starts with me,” and followed it up with a goal of implementing new personal conduct policies by the Super Bowl.
Despite speaking for 43 minutes, Pro Football Talk believes that Goodell did more damage to his reputation, especially with his response to the question on why he struggled to hand down proper punishment to Rice:
The man who opened the press conference by saying that he believes in accountability showed little of it in response by saying that the personal conduct policy, which Goodell oversees, was not sufficient to handle that particular case.
Goodell made a number of promises and spoke well during his original statement that was made during his opening statement, but things seemed to get pretty heated as the question portion of the press conference continued on.
Numerous media members were still attempting to ask questions as the press conference ended and it looked as if the general public was unsatisfied when everything was all said and done. Though Goodell came in trying to calm everything down after so many issues, he may have done more harm than good.
