NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

[DukieBoy]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Dear Roger,

[img]http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv300/morgennxtears/eat****bitches.jpg[/img]

Dick Lebeau
Dick Lebeau
Dick Lebeau

Dayum!

Anyway, I was hoping for a letter of resignation and all I got was this piece of ****. (Goodell's letter, that is).

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Blame for mess NFL finds itself in must start with Goodell

By Mike Freeman
CBSSports.com National Columnist
March 13, 2011


It was December, and the clock was still ticking. Yes, remember when there was still a labor clock? There was hope Laborgeddon could be avoided. Roger Goodell met with a small group of fans in Foxborough, Mass., and was asked if peace could be brokered.

"I think it's critically important to avoid" a work stoppage, Goodell said in remarks to the media after his talk with fans. "We need to have a system that works for everybody, but I think everybody would agree that what's most important is football, and that we should work very hard to avoid that."

When Goodell took over for Paul Tagliabue as commissioner in September of 2006, his sole job in many ways was to avoid the disastrous circumstances the league faces today. Obviously, he failed.

It's not a coincidence the NFL is experiencing its first work stoppage in nearly a quarter of a century during the Reign of Goodell.

Goodell is a good man with solid intentions. But his reputation for heavy-handedness with the players over the past few years -- the excessive punishments, the harsh suspensions -- led to a level of distrust that carried into negotiations, several players say.

The distrust in Goodell has been building for years -- not weeks -- and the failed talks were a symptom. As Goodell suspended players for entire seasons, union player reps watched. As Goodell sometimes displayed an attitude that he was a king and they were serfs, players watched. As Goodell and the owners asked for a cool $1 billion refund without giving a detailed explanation why a league swimming in an orgy of cash was suddenly broke, they watched some more. When Carolina owner Jerry Richardson was condescending in meetings with the players they ... watched.

After the bungled attempt to use television money as a lockout fund became public, anger and distrust, building for some time in the player ranks, mixed into a highly volatile brew, several players said in interviews with CBSSports.com over the past week. The distance between Goodell and some players may in fact now be impossible to close.

There was one example of that anger after mediation collapsed. In a news conference, league lawyer Jeff Pash stated a litany of things owners were said to have offered the players. One person close to the players association responded bluntly: "Pash lies and Goodell isn't doing [expletive] about it." A player added: "Pash is standing there saying things he knows aren't true, and Roger is right there, not stopping it."

"Jeff Pash lied," NFLPA lawyer Jim Quinn said. "Jeff Pash lied to the players, he lied to the fans."

Criticism of Goodell is mostly muted in the press, because unlike Tagliabue, the current commissioner has an extraordinarily friendly relationship with many in the football media.

In fairness to Goodell, it does take two to get a deal done. But Goodell and the owners clearly took the hard-ass route, and doing so with a bunch of athletes who compete for a living, failing to realize their testosterone levels would rise considerably, was a huge mistake.

This doesn't mean Goodell should have caved. It just means he took a different approach from Tagliabue, and it didn't work.

NFLPA leader DeMaurice Smith is different from predecessor Gene Upshaw and Goodell is different from Tagliabue, so it's difficult to compare one set of leaders to another. Still, Tagliabue was adept at keeping the anger and distrust at minimal levels when dealing with the union. One former union rep compared Tagliabue to Bill Clinton (minus the bimbo eruptions) in that Tagliabue could get almost anyone to listen to his viewpoint.

The odd thing about Tagliabue's legacy (he should be in the Hall of Fame) is that the media portrayed him as a cold automaton. Privately, he was anything but. Tagliabue gained Upshaw's trust while Goodell never truly earned Smith's.

Tagliabue accomplished two things Goodell couldn't. First, Tagliabue didn't try to steamroll the players. Second, he kept the angry owners away from the process. Most of the meetings with Upshaw involved small groups of negotiating teams. There was more communication. There was also more give and take.

I'm absolutely convinced that if Tagliabue was commissioner, a deal would've been consummated. There's no question about it.

Now, everything moves to the court system. It should have never gone this far and hasn't for many years. But here we are. Here we go. There is plenty of blame, but Goodell's primary mission was to stop this.

And he failed.

[url="http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/14807250/blame-for-mess-nfl-finds-itself-in-must-start-with-goodell"]http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/1480 ... th-goodell[/url]

[Oviedo]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Goodell was public enemy #1 this past season but Demarcus Smith has now secured that position as the one person who will do the most to destroy the NFL.

[RuthlessBurgher]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Tagliabue > Goodell

Upshaw > Smith

Tags and Gene worked together toward what was best for the health of the league as a whole. Once upon a time, they were partners working together toward a common goal.

Rog and Dee butt heads to the point that neither side trusts anything the other side says. Now one side locks the other out, who responds with a lawsuit and a court date.

Both sides are at fault here...they each share a considerable portion of the blame for the mess we are in right now.

To use a common PlanetSteelers football analogy, saying that it is all the union's fault (or all the owner's fault, for that matter) is sort of like laying the blame for a loss solely at the feet of Bruce Arians while completely ignoring a leaky secondary, for instance.

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Goodell: NFL's CBA offer might not stay on table

Posted: Tuesday, March 22, 2011


Owners haven't talked about using replacement players if the NFL's first work stoppage since 1987 stretches on, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday, and the league might not keep its last contract offer on the table if bargaining doesn't resume soon.
"We have not had any discussions or consideration of replacement players," Goodell said at a news conference closing the annual owners meetings. "It hasn't been discussed, it hasn't been considered, and it's not in our plans."

He also said the Miami Dolphins and four other teams have been fined or been told the NFL is investigating them for violating offseason rules prohibiting contact with players. Goodell was asked specifically about the Dolphins; he did not reveal other teams involved.

NFL general counsel Jeff Pash said the violations aren't related to the league's lockout of players, which began March 12, hours after negotiations with the players broke off, and the union dissolved. Even during normal offseasons, from the end of one season until around March 15, NFL rules bar teams from holding organized workouts, practice or meetings, and don't allow position coaches to supervise players.
"It's a 'go home and relax' period," Pash said.

Since the lockout began, no contact between the league's 32 clubs and players has been allowed. Players don't get paid and can't negotiate new contracts; they aren't allowed to use team facilities.

Goodell said he hasn't spoken to NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith since March 11, when talks ended after 16 days of federal mediation.

Owners made a proposal that day that included an increase in their 2011 salary cap offer from $131 million to $141 million; the players had been seeking a $151 million cap for that year, plus a chance to earn a percentage of any higher-than-projected revenues above a certain threshold.

"Every day that goes by," Goodell said, "makes it harder and harder to keep the elements in that proposal."

Six days after that proposal was made, Goodell outlined some of the specifics in an e-mail sent to all active players.

Some players complained about Goodell's letter, saying it was meant to divide them. They also objected to the letter's suggestion that players push their "union to return to the bargaining table" _ the NFLPA renounced its status as a union and says it is now a trade association. That, in turn, permitted players to sue the league in federal court under antitrust laws. A hearing is scheduled for April 6.

Asked Tuesday why he sent that letter, Goodell replied: "What the ownership wanted to make sure is that the players knew what their leadership had walked away from in the mediation process. So we sent that directly to the players. As you know, they're claiming not to be a union, but we think it was important to send that so the players understood what the owners had offered."

The NFL hasn't lost games to a work stoppage since 1987, when a strike shortened the season and some games included nonunion replacement players.

Goodell said owners want to have a complete 2011 season, and repeated his hope that negotiations will resume _ perhaps before the draft begins April 28.

The "primary focus" of the two days of meetings in New Orleans, Goodell said, was "our labor dispute and our planning and preparation on that."

"We are certainly planning on having a full season," he said. "That's our objective, and we're going to work as hard as we can to make that become a reality."

[url="http://www.timesonline.com/sports/steelers/goodell-nfl-s-cba-offer-might-not-stay-on-table/article_cddf8966-30fd-5651-bca6-d81049b142ab.html"]http://www.timesonline.com/sports/steel ... 142ab.html[/url]

[feltdizz]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Goodell was public enemy #1 this past season but Demarcus Smith has now secured that position as the one person who will do the most to destroy the NFL.

Goodell is and will always be enemy #1. Whoever was in Smith's position would look like a hard azzzz because he has to deal with the hardest azzzz of all. Goodell.

[RuthlessBurgher]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Goodell was public enemy #1 this past season but Demarcus Smith has now secured that position as the one person who will do the most to destroy the NFL.

Goodell is and will always be enemy #1. Whoever was in Smith's position would look like a hard azzzz because he has to deal with the hardest azzzz of all. Goodell.

That old British dude on Dancing with the Stars thought Hines had a hard azzzz.

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

And now, a message from Al Davis

Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on March 24, 2011




Jerry McDonald of the Oakland Tribune wrote such a nifty post on Wednesday that we wanted to pass it along.

He relayed a story from Bill Parcells, who was asked what he learned from Al Davis.

“Nobody cares,” Parcells said. “Nobody cares about your injuries or your problems. All they want to know on Monday is if you won.”

That message can absolutely applied to the current labor situation. Fans don’t care about the league’s problems. Or the players’ problems.

Let’s face it: They are the problems of a sport that doesn’t have real financial problems. They are good problems.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to understand this. In a story relayed by Peter King in Monday Morning Quarterback this week, Goodell made a phone call to a faithful caller “Benny” of SIRIUS radio. (Goodell often contacts fans directly that contact the league.)

Goodell’s message: “He told me, ‘Don’t take sides,”’ Benny said.

It’s a great message we’d like to hear more. For the majority of fans, every word that comes from the players or owners until an agreement happens is just noise.

Nobody cares about the the owners or players’ problems. We just want a win.

In this case, that’s an agreement.

[url="http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/24/and-now-a-message-from-al-davis/"]http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... -al-davis/[/url]

[Discipline of Steel]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Ah, so the Creepshow Ghoul finally chimes in with some actual common sense. Nobody cares about your perspective, just get it done. (I also think he resembles the world's ugliest dog...photoshop please!)

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Jags owner thinks league will win April 6 hearing

Posted by Mike Florio on March 27, 2011



We’ve sensed over the past week a strong reluctance by the NFL to engage the players in settlement talks, and we think it flows from a sudden and strong sense of confidence that the owners will prevail in the April 6 hearing on the motion to lift the lockout while the Brady antitrust case unfolds.

Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver has confirmed our suspicions.

“The reality of that is we think we’ll win, but if we don’t, we’re still going to get back to the negotiating table,” Weaver recently said, according to Tania Ganguli of the Florida Times-Union. “It’ll just be how soon and when. Once we get back to the negotiating table, we all know that we have to play football in 2011. That’s our bottom line.”

Weaver also referred to the players who have given their names to the class action against the league as the “gang of 10,” and Weaver referred on several occasions to the decertification of the union as a “sham.”

Still, Weaver thinks the parties eventually will be talking again.

“It’s obvious there will be some leverage to whichever side prevails,” Weaver said. “But I don’t think it will keep from getting a deal done that’s fair to both sides. I think the offer that was on the table when the union decertified, I thought it was an extremely fair offer. Did it have all the tweaks that the players wanted? Probably not. We should’ve stayed at the negotiating table until those things got ironed out.”

The two sides can get back to the table right now, if they want. In our view, the owners don’t want to do it, because the owners think they’ll win the April 6 hearing, and that this will give them more leverage when the time comes to talk again.

[url="http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/27/jags-owner-thinks-league-will-win-april-6-hearing/"]http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... 6-hearing/[/url]

[birtikidis]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Goodell was public enemy #1 this past season but Demarcus Smith has now secured that position as the one person who will do the most to destroy the NFL.

I think they're both a$$holes, so, in disagreeing with you, realize that I agree with you. but how do you become the #1 a$$hole? Take over a league where the CBA has been opted out on and not make any effort to do anything but change the game. Since God became the commish all he's done is prod the players. Fine the hell out of them with inconsistent rules interpretations and vilify them. The players were backed in a corner from day one with the opting out of the CBA and ever since the league has tried to strong arm them with fines.

[feltdizz]

Re: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Writes Letter to Fans

Goodell was public enemy #1 this past season but Demarcus Smith has now secured that position as the one person who will do the most to destroy the NFL.

I think they're both a$$holes, so, in disagreeing with you, realize that I agree with you. but how do you become the #1 a$$hole? Take over a league where the CBA has been opted out on and not make any effort to do anything but change the game. Since God became the commish all he's done is prod the players. Fine the hell out of them with inconsistent rules interpretations and vilify them. The players were backed in a corner from day one with the opting out of the CBA and ever since the league has tried to strong arm them with fines.

exactly... I find it odd that a commish that everyone thinks is the worst ever is somehow not representing the owners wishes and is this lone wolf.

Goodell is the face of the owners and they are screwing up a perfectly good product so they can grab all the money.

Not to get political but corporations are making the highest profits EVER while unemployment numbers are through the roof. The NFL isn't hurting... they aren't in the red. They just want more and more because it's what billionaires do. They hoard cash.