McCombs: NFL worse off than before Goodell came out of hiding
Have you ever actually seen a train wreck?
When's the last time you went to the circus?
If you watched NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's press conference Friday afternoon, you won't have to think hard to answer either of those questions.
After he showed up 15 minutes late for his hastily called 3 p.m. press conference, he spent about half of the next 45 minutes or so admitting mistakes were made in the Ray Rice case and vowing that the NFL was going to change its policies to ensure the same would never happen again.
"The same mistakes can never be repeated," he said.
Yet, when the last half of those 45 minutes rolled around, Goodell took questions from the media. And the only definitive, positive, non-evasive answer he had for any of them was no, he did not consider resigning.
That's not a good sign.
Let's run down what little Goodell actually did say on Friday:
All that's nice and good. But I'm sorry. I'm not buying the package.
I saw nothing but corporate speak and dodgeball.
While many of the reporters in the room were members of the regular NFL media who have been, wittingly or unwittingly, partially responsible for the league's ability to skate on big issues, there were others that held Goodell's feet to the fire.
The brightest star in the universe was CNN's Rachel Nichols.
She pushed the commissioner on whether or not he would give up any of his power in disciplinary cases. He had no answer.
She pointed out, when he repeated the tired line that the NFL had asked for but not received the Ray Rice videotape, that the Atlantic City prosecutors office said it had received no communication from the NFL asking for the video.
He denied this.
And she pointed out that the NFL's independent investigator, former FBI chief Robert Mueller, works for a law firm that has negotiated TV contracts for the league as recently as this year and employed the president of the Baltimore Ravens, a key figure in the Rice investigation, for more than 30 years.
Rather than address the conflict of interest, he accused her of questioning the integrity of the FBI (as if that's a bad thing these days).
When the tough questions came, Goodell still had no real answers.
He admits he and the league messed up and says we're working on it. Just don't ask him how.
Throw in a Howard Stern lackey who crashed the press conference and a zinger aimed at Goodell by the TMZ representative in the room, and the NFL came out looking worse than it did before Goodell came out of hiding.
This story was originally published September 20, 2014 at 2:55 AM with the headline "McCombs: NFL worse off than before Goodell came out of hiding."