Over the past decade, the power of the commissioner has been a heated debate in the NFL. The powers and responsibilities of the commissioner, Roger Goodell, has drastically increased since he took over in 2006. In recent years, there has been a decrease in trust between Goodell and the players. Most of the distrust is due to the fact that Goodell usually refuses to appoint an independent arbitrator to hear appeals from the players. By not hiring an independent arbitrator, it allows Goodell to become the judge, jury, and executioner in the discipline process. Goodell has made it his main objective to cast the NFL as an organization that does not allow its athletes much room for error when it comes to their behavior off the field. Many children look up to their favorite football players as role models, and Goodell expects the players to act accordingly. Because of this, there has been a constant struggle to determine what warrants a suspension to be handed down to the players.
Even though Goodell has increased the power of the commissioner, he did not do so entirely on his own. In 2011, the NFL and the players union agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that remains in place today. Article forty-six of the collective bargaining agreement is the provision that gives the commissioner all of the power over arbitrary discipline. It grants Goodell the power to punish players for “conduct detrimental to the integrity of, or public confidence in, the game of professional football” (Breer). This broad power is the reason that there is so much debate over suspensions that Goodell has handed down. Basically, any action that a player does that Goodell deems “detrimental” is subject to a suspension (Breer). There have been many suspensions that have been handed down from Goodell that have been controversial. The NFL does not have the same burden of proof as the legal system, which has generated debate over whether players deserve a suspension or not. Examples where Goodell has himself determined that the player should be suspended, even if no criminal charges were filed against the person are in the cases of Ben Roethlisberger, Ezekiel Elliott, and Tom Brady.
In April of 2010, it was announced that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would be suspended for the first six games of the NFL season due to a violation of the NFL’s personal conduct policy. The reason for Roethlisberger’s suspension was due to the fact that a twenty-year-old college student alleged that he raped her in the bathroom of a bar in Milledgeville, Georgia. The woman alleged that Roethlisberger invited her to a VIP section of a nightclub and then went with her into a bathroom, where she claims he raped her. The woman was taken to a hospital and tests were taken, but the male DNA that was found was not enough to create a profile of the person. The Ocmulgee District Attorney, Fred Bright, held a press conference to declare that no charges were to be filed against Roethlisberger as there was not enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and the accuser decided she did not want to press charges against Roethlisberger due to all of the toxic media attention she would receive.
Goodell handed down his own punishment despite the fact that Ocmulgee County did not press charges against Roethlisberger. In his statement he said, “my decision today is not based on a finding that you violated Georgia law, but that said, you are held to a higher standard as an NFL player, and there is nothing about your conduct in Milledgeville that can remotely be described as admirable, responsible, or consistent with either the values of the league or the expectations of our fans” Roethlisberger’s suspension was the first instance where Goodell displayed his power as a commissioner by suspending a player without them ever being arrested or charged with a crime. He made it clear that he expects the players to uphold themselves in a certain manner, and it is not dependent on whether the law deems it to be criminal. In this case, even though the law could not determine if Roethlisberger was in the wrong, it was still not the image that Goodell wanted his players to be projecting, and he would be suspended for it. The suspension was eventually reduced to four games, costing Roethlisberger around two million dollars.
Another instance where Goodell determined that a player should be suspended despite charges not being filed is with Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott was accused of assaulting his girlfriend in 2016. The Columbus Police Department opened an investigation into the domestic violence allegations, but they did not find enough evidence to pursue a criminal prosecution against Elliott. However, the NFL launched its own investigation into the allegations, just as they did when dealing with the Roethlisberger situation. They interviewed over a dozen witnesses and went through thousands of texts messages throughout their investigation. The NFL’s investigation concluded that Elliott did indeed violate the league’s personal conduct policy on numerous occasions, and he was suspended for six games, which is now the baseline punishment for first-time domestic violence offenders. However, Elliott’s saga with Goodell and the NFL was only just beginning after being handed the six game suspension.
Elliott decided to appeal his suspension, and Goodell chose to not be the arbitrator in the appeal. Instead, he appointed Harold Henderson to be the neutral arbitrator. However, Henderson is the president of a charity that is affiliated with the NFL and served as the NFL’s vice president of labor relations for sixteen years, which some viewed as a potential conflict of interest for him. Goodell, having the power to be the arbitrator or appoint anyone he wants, is another part of the collective bargaining agreement that potentially harms players as it can cause a conflict of interest. Also, the collective bargaining agreement says nothing about forcing the NFL allow a player to call a witness for cross-examination. When Elliott asked Henderson to make his accuser available for cross-examination, he declined it and eventually upheld the suspension. Elliott would then go on to have a lengthy appeals process where the suspension would be put on hold and back on again three times until Elliott eventually accepted the six game suspension. The collective bargaining agreement failed Elliott by not allowing him to cross-examine his accuser and giving Goodell the power to choose the arbitrator, which resulted in being suspending without any criminal charges being filed against him.
While all of these suspensions caused a lot of controversy over the extent of Goodell’s power, the suspension that was the most damaging to his public standing was that of Tom Brady. During the AFC Championship game of the 2014-2015 NFL season, Brady threw an interception to Indianapolis Colts linebacker, D’Qwell Jackson. Jackson gave the ball to the team’s equipment manager for a keepsake, and the equipment manager notified the NFL Gameday Operations that there seemed to be a problem with the inflation levels of the Patriot’s balls. Jackson, however, stated that he did not feel anything wrong with the ball when he intercepted it. During halftime, NFL officials measured the balls and only found that one of the balls was two pounds per square inch below the minimum. The balls were re-inflated during halftime and used for the rest of the game. Then, at the 2016 NFL combine, members of the Colts equipment staff claimed that during their week eleven matchup with the Patriots, balls that had been intercepted seemed to be soft and coated with a substance. Soon, the NFL would launch an investigation that became known as “deflategate”.
The NFL hired attorney Ted Wells to get to the bottom of the investigation. After a four month investigation, the NFL published a two hundred forty-three page report saying that it was “more probable than not” that the Patriots’ equipment staff were deliberately changing the air pressure of the balls prior to the AFC Championship Game and that Brady was “generally aware” of it (Maske). After the report was released, Goodell handed Brady a four game suspension for his role in deflategate. The NFLPA announced that Brady would appeal the suspension, and they requested a neutral arbitrator. However, Goodell announced that he would preside over the appeal, and the NFL upheld Brady’s suspension after his appeal. Then, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman ruled that Goodell went too far in his punishment, and Brady’s suspension was overturned. However, The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York overruled Berman’s decision, and the suspension was reinstated. Brady then filed for a second hearing with the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals but was denied, and later announced he would not appeal his case to the Supreme Court. Goodell’s power to be the judge, jury, and executioner allowed for Brady to be suspended for possibly being aware that the balls were slightly deflated. The NFLPA could do nothing about Goodell being the arbitrator, and his decision was ultimately final.
With the NFL not having the same burden of proof that the law has, it can cause a lot of controversy over the power of the commissioner to discipline players. Whether or not you agree with some of the suspensions mentioned, Roger Goodell has done nothing more than what the collective bargaining agreement allows him to do. The players’ union agreed and signed off on all the powers that he has surrounding the league’s personal conduct policy. It will be interesting to see in 2021, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires, if the players attempt to take away some of the power that Goodell holds. However, as of now, they must deal with the powers that they themselves agreed to give to the commissioner.