Vilma lawsuit puts Goodell on the run
A bounty has been placed on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Vilma is just the latest to lay his ass out.
It is a test, really. They want to see if they can get Goodell running sideways, get his head sideways. How did former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator and blackballed league scapegoat Gregg Williams so eloquently put it?
"Kill the head, and the body will die.”
Yes, there is a new bounty program in the NFL, and players are paying (lawyers fees) to take a run at Goodell and the league on this steady stream of plausible deniability b.s. that:
a) Football is a game of physically punishing acts, and violence, and maliciously knocking the you-know-what out of your opponent even if, and in some cases especially if, somebody gets hurt.
b) How cumulative effects of this organized violence can be brutal and debilitating brain trauma.
The NFL not only thrived on this culture of violence, but it raked in billions from it. And as soon as things went south — public relations-wise and possibly legally — the NFL cut these guys loose.
Cut Vilma loose. Cut Williams loose. And cut loose so many untold former players — the stories we know and those we have no idea of — to battle the physical and mental demons at least partially brought on by careers spent bashing and having their heads bashed for the benefit of a league now claiming ignorance on brain trauma....
...The problem for Goodell is that the discovery process is a beast. He would have to show his work, revealing his sources on Bountygate, as well as any other info unearthed during the investigation that he has been able to keep in-house.
Goodell, if he has good legal counsel, probably has been advised that if he wants to avoid people going digging, he shouldn't give them reason to pick up a shovel. But he has given players such as Vilma every reason to dig by scapegoating them and making them look like rogue thugs who turned an otherwise safe Sunday activity into a dangerous sport. It is disingenuous when viewed generously and the height of hypocrisy in any light.
FROM FOXSPORTS.COM |
