What's happening here is that Goodell is staring down the barrel of more than 1,000 lawsuits from former players with concussions. He has to prove the NFL front office is dead-set against violence, while, in NFL locker rooms, the coaches are dead-set in favor of it.
Now that Vilma is out one-ninth of his career for following orders, he's finally standing up. "I intend to fight this injustice," he says. But it's too late.
During the lockout, the NFLPA signed up for nine more years of a dictatorship, nine more years of a one-man judicial system. They agreed to it in exchange for not having to play an 18-game season, hoping to lessen the number of holes in their brains from collisions that equal a car hitting a brick wall at 45 miles per hour. But that doesn't mean the NFL shouldn't have an independent panel. To most Americans, the way the NFL is set up now looks positively Cuban.
I'm not saying the players didn't take part. They did. It was wrong and dangerous and they deserved punishment. And I admire Goodell for the steps he's taken to stop players from stupefying themselves with helmet-to-helmet collisions. But to slap these players as harshly as their bosses is like giving Bernie Madoff's secretary the same sentence as Madoff.
The players are led by, and at the mercy of, the absolute and unchecked power of Goodell.

This time, he led them into a trap.