When you make thirty million bucks a year and screw up, you apparently get to pick your own investigator. Isn’t that nice? And you still get to call it an independent investigation to boot. NFL fans everywhere await with baited breath.
They did get a guy with impressive credentials. Former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Wow! And with a name like Robert S. Mueller III, the guy has got to be respectable, right?
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made a bad mistake in the case of Ray Rice and the two game suspension awarded him by the commissioner’s office. Public outrage rang out loudly and clearly from the moment the announcement was made, and Goodell has been back peddling ever since. After a recent press conference, reporters were calling him the ‘Artful Dodger’ for the way he evaded their direct questions.
The subject of domestic violence among NFL players has been around for as long as the league has been in existence. That’s a fact. In the past it has been covered up, or simply ignored by the very organizations that should have taken responsibility for their player’s actions many years ago. But those days are now long gone.
We are now living in an age of unprecedented transparency for public figures. With the advent of the internet, the world became a much smaller place. Then there are all those cameras. Not only are there cameras hanging from walls and poles at almost every place people might gather, but nowadays everyone carries a camera around disguised as a cell phone.
All of this makes it very difficult to get away with any sort of shenanigans these days. Somebody is always watching. Even in elevators. The video evidence that was shown over and over to the entire world has condemned Ray Rice in the eyes of the public, and Roger Goodell’s light handed treatment of the case has many calling for his ouster as NFL Commissioner.
So, Mr. Mueller, formerly of the FBI, will look into any wrong doing by Goodell and the commissioner’s office in the Ray Rice case, although most fans have already made up their minds on the issue. Sir Roger has admitted publicly to having messed up this time but, he is not resigning his position.
On the bright side we will have a couple of highly respectable NFL team owners overseeing the process. Art Rooney of the Steelers and John Mara of the Giants will be responsible to see that justice is served and the integrity of the NFL is maintained.
