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The Authoritarian Mind

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I can’t describe the worldview of Roger Goodell and his apologists any better than Goodell does himself:

As the NFL continues to bask in the glow of a narrow, 2-1 appeals court victory in the #Deflategate imbroglio, Commissioner Roger Goodell is now defending his handling of quarterback Tom Brady’s suspension by attacking the NFL Players Association.

“I understand when there is a defense of any violation . . . that is part of the game, we all understand that nobody wants to discipline,” Goodell told ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike, via Dan Werly of TheWhiteBronco.com. “I understand the union’s position. The union’s position is to eliminate discipline. That is what they do, we are going to protect the player, right or wrong. And I get that, that is understandable, go at it. My job is to protect the game. We are not going to relent on that, we are not going to compromise at all.”

That’s an incredibly cynical view of the union’s role, and an apparent attempt to counter NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith’s recent explanation on PFT Live about the union’s commitment to fighting for its players. But the union isn’t trying to ensure that players suffer no consequence for wrongdoing. The union wants any consequences to be fair and consistent and within the confines of the labor deal. The union also wants the process that determines those consequences to be fair.

Well, there you go. To Goodell, either you believe that Roger Goodell should have the unilateral, virtually unreviewable authority to issue any punishment to any team or player for anything, or you think that nobody should ever be punished for anything. If you believe in such concepts as “due process” or “proportionate punishments reasonably knowable ex ante” or “judges should not serve as their own appellate adjudicator” or “league officials should not leak prejudicial and false information about people they’re targeting to their court stenographers” it’s because you’re opposed in principle to any rules or punishment at all. If Trump decides to counter Cruz by naming his first Supreme Court nominee, he’s got his man.

I recommend the rest of Florio’s post as well. Since I’ve been guilty of unwarranted criticism of the union for this in the past, I should note that he’s persuasive that there was nothing the NFLPA could plausibly have done about this, even knowing the likelihood that a commissioner would eventually massively abuse his powers. The NFLPA is far from being in an equal bargaining position, the league flatly refused to consider placing more restrictions on the commissioner’s Article 46 powers, and short of a strike that almost certainly wouldn’t have worked anyway it’s not clear what could have been done about it. That the system is bad, though, doesn’t let Goodell off the hook: he has been far worse than his predecessor, which is why he didn’t want Tagliabue anywhere near Ballghazi although he could have let him review it like he did with the New Orleans bounty scandal.

On a related note, Jonah Keri has a good column about some of the reaction to the Dee Gordon suspension. You would think that a draconian suspension for a first time offense would be enough. But for a lot of people, no — it’s outrageous that there’s any appeal process! The team should be able to void his contract! It never ends.

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