Just one week ago, there was this tweet from ESPN’s Chris Mortensen.
From longtime team executive who says he echoes what many other team execs believe: @NFLCommish Roger Goodell has earned fair share of criticism over years but his leadership in managing the pandemic crisis and social justice issues have been his Hall of Fame moment.
Boy, have things changed in a week when it comes to "managing the pandemic crisis."
The Titans have had a COVID outbreak, the Patriots have had a mini outbreak, and now schedules have been changed to work around two postponed games (Steelers-Titans last week, Patriots-Broncos this week), which has impacted eight teams — most of which haven’t had any COVID issues themselves.
That’s not even mentioning the league forcing the Patriots to travel to Kansas City last Monday, the day of a rescheduled game just two days after Cam Newton had tested positive for the virus.
All that seems quite far from a “Hall of Fame moment.”
And with all this going on, Goodell has been in hiding it seems -- no press conferences, no appearances on any network shows, not even a written statement.
Nothing at all.
All there’s been from him publicly is leaked letters to teams advising them on the updated protocols, which seem to change by the week.
Shouldn’t the commissioner of the NFL, the man who is supposedly in charge of everything, be explaining what’s going on to the fans and general public?
To not even appear on the league’s own network for a brief interview during any of this is quite puzzling. Even MLB commissioner Rob Manfred gave interviews when things were at its worst this summer when it comes to the league even having a season and then following all the positive tests early in the season.
Someone needs to answer for the league not having a plan whatsoever when it comes to dealing with positive COVID cases and players going on the COVID list.
Going to the year, it appeared like the league just assumed with expanded practice squads and two players eligible to be elevated each week, teams could just replace COVID players with these players and the games would just go on. But, contract tracing and testing have shown that just can’t happen.
And then it seems the league is just starting to realize the incubation period is an actual thing. Just having a day or two go by following a positive test without any new ones doesn’t mean the virus is gone.
It found out the hard way with the Patriots.
These things, along with some others, have led to some players questioning the NFL and the NFLPA valuing their safety.
“For us in this locker room, this is what we have,” Patriots defensive captain Jason McCourty said over the weekend. “Between the players, the coaches, the administration, the staff, it is up to us to take care of one another, to make sure physically we are all set, make sure mentally because I think outside of here the people that don’t have to walk in our building — whether it is the league office, whether it is the NFLPA — they don’t care. We’re trying to get games played and we’re trying to get the season going. For them, it is not about our best interest, or our healthy and safety, it is about what can we make protocol-wise that sounds good, looks good and how can we go out there and play games.”
This is a pretty strong statement from one of the more respected players in the entire league.
Shouldn’t Goodell get out in front of this and get the league’s perspective out there? One would think, but that hasn’t happened and it doesn’t seem like it will happen.
This isn’t even close to Goodell’s “Hall of Fame moment” and that could explain why he’s hiding, but he owes the league, media and fans some explanation regarding the decisions that have been made.
And this should be easy considering just a few years back he said he’s available to the media almost every day of his job.
Right…
Everyone is waiting, Roger.
