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NEW YORK -- On the Wednesday before the NFL draft, as mid-morning sunshine soaked lower Manhattan, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell strode onto a soccer field cluttered with giddy children, eager reporters and 26 draft prospects. The league had organized a football clinic as part of its "Play 60" program, and Goodell, wearing a baggy blue sweat suit, ambled to midfield to survey the action. The commissioner was there to help future rookies sell youth fitness, but he didn't overlook an opportunity to chat with New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora, who was speaking at the event. The two spoke for at least 10 minutes, talking seriously at times, joking and laughing at others and looking eerily like long-lost pals.


This didn't seem like the no-nonsense Roger Goodell who just issued suspensions to four players -- including a one-year ban for linebacker Jonathan Vilma -- for their roles in the New Orleans Saints' bounty system. It also didn't appear that Goodell had any problems bonding with a veteran at a time when so many players despise him.

"The stupidity of some people gets me sometimes," Umenyiora said later, adding that he first met Goodell on a USO tour of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. "A lot of players think he's trying to take away our game, but Roger really cares about us. He's a regular guy."

Players are NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's toughest critics - ESPN

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."