The Crystal Ball 2013 Opening Night

Don't you just love how the NFL managed to find a way to cram Peyton Manning down our throats right from game one this season, despite their new tradition of feting the Super Bowl Champions? I have a feeling over the next couple years, the Peyton Manning media attention is going to surpass that of latter years Brett Favre. (shuddering from a cold shill of fear running down my spine.)

Goodell The Evil Genius

The big news this week as the NFL season prepares to officially get underway was the league and commissioner Roger Goodell reached a settlement with former players suing the league over concussions and long term medical care. The good news is that players desperate for help both medically and financially will get that help, the league will further fund concussion research and future NFL alumni can look forward to better health care after retirement.

Plus by reaching an agreement, the NFL has managed to avoid alienating most of the men on whose backs they built the league. Not everyone is happy, and there will be some that will likely pursue individual litigation for either larger awards or to demand NFL culpability. These men will risk getting nothing, or they could expose the NFL. This will yet play out. But with this overall victory, I imagine the NFL will make sure these smaller lawsuits occur outside the public eye.

Despite the feel good aspects of this story the NFL is trying to trumpet on the eve of the 2013 season, I maintain my stance regarding Roger Goodell and his safety campaign as strongly as ever. I do not believe Goodell genuinely cares about player welfare and safety and only pays lip service to them in order to continue maximizing profits.

Let’s look at this. First of all, the money that will be paid out is minor. I know, you think I’m crazy, but to the NFL $765 Million is peanuts. I know, Heir Goodell is pleading otherwise, but remember this number is divided amongst all teams, and up front. It will be spread out over several years, and it will be years before any of the payments are made. Teams could set aside the money now, and pay as they go with the interest. I mean honestly, you think Jerry Jones will blink at a few million to get rid of a potential headache? The man spends that much on facial peels alone. In the economics of the NFL, this number is pocket change.

Second, while it’s nice the league is reaching out, came to a settlement and will be helping these men. But they did nothing for these players for years and only have now because they were forced to address the issue. The popularity and size of the current NFL can be directly traced to the men involved in this protracted fight. Their play, personalities and star power, combined with the NFL’s myth making machine, built ordinary athletes into demigods at whom we marveled with awe and wonder. No longer were players merely tough, but men whose constitutions and tolerance for pain beyond that of mere mortals.

The NFL used this mythology to build an image, a brand and a billion dollar industry. Even today, the NFL makes money off of these players. In some cases, they’ve been making money off former players decades after they have retired. The NFL of today owes everything it has, and all it plans to become, to these men. They are the ones that truly built the league as we know it. But for all they gave, and continue to give, to the game, Goodell could not be bothered to help them with their issues, despite the ever growing evidence and connections that their long term health problems stemmed from playing football.

Goodell knew then, as he does now, that if he had helped any player without a legal agreement, it would be an admission of guilt and responsibility. If he had done that, the floodgates would have been opened and most likely, professional football as we know it would have been irreparably damaged. There is no way Goodell could a) let that happen or b) admit to anything and potentially open the door for further litigation.

A key point in the settlement is that the NFL, in agreeing to finally help these men and fund more concussion research, bears no liability and admits to nothing regarding how these men were injured. He’s basically managed, at least in this lawsuit, to give himself a get out of concussion blame free card.

The point of contention in the middle of this lawsuit is what exactly did the NFL know about the potential long term damage of concussions, the dangers of repeat concussions and when did they know it. Former players want to know if the NFL was aware of the risks of which the players were not, yet still sent these men back into games injured, knowingly risking their long term health and safety.

That information may never be known. If the league did have advanced knowledge, unless someone wins a different suit that information will never see the light of day. But what we do know, and can work with, is that for the past half decade plus, the NFL has known there is a direct correlation between concussions and long term health problems, including dementia and ALS amongst others. The medical science grows daily, and Goodell and the NFL of today are fully aware of it.

Yet despite this knowledge, Goodell refused to help players until they sued. When the ranks of the former players suing swelled to a number Goodell could not ignore, only then did he finally address the issue, first by instilling his joke of a safety campaign, then by issuing inconsistent fines followed by difficult to judge and enforce rule changes, throwing empty money and promises at concussion research and then finally by finding a way to settle with the litigants.

But it’s not just former players Goodell only cares about when it’s convenient. The wellbeing of current players means little to the NFL. Mind you, Goodell talks a good game, but actions speak louder than words. And so far, those actions include the refusal to mandate all players use concussion rated helmets, Tier III mouthpieces, require all helmets to be properly fitted to the player, real punishments for players who violate safety rules. This last one would go a long way, but nothing severe enough, or even consistent, has come out of the commissioner's office. If Goodell really wanted players to stop making dangerous and illegal hits, leading with the head, or hitting out of bounds, a sliding scale of suspensions, starting at 4 games, would go a long way.

But most troubling of all is how the NFL is working to actively keep the public in the dark on the dangers of concussions. ESPN and PBS were teaming up to bring forward a program about concussions. Goodell and the NFL got wind of this, and told their broadcast partner to end their association with this program. ESPN kowtowed to money, lost what little journalistic integrity they had left, and pulled out of its partnership with PBS. This isn't just ignoring players and denying danger, this is outright deception of the paying public, and frighteningly draconian.

So despite Goodell's best public relations attempts, the NFL's true feelings on player safety, when you look past the splashy feel good stories, seem painfully clear. But if you still don't believe me that Goodell's player safety campaign is a load of hokum, then just answer this question. Why would Goodell suspend Sean Payton for an entire season, punish the Saints team and team management and publically call out the organization and it's players in a long, protracted and oftentimes embarrassing public shaming for Bountygate, which harmed players and made player safety look like a farce. Yet he only fined Bill Belichick and the Patriots for Spygate, a systematic program of cheating with allegations said cheating methods led directly to Super Bowl victories. Allegations that if true, would rock the actual game and league to their core, destroy the reputation and integrity of the NFL, lead to the questioning of three Super Bowl victories. Allegations that will never be fully answered by anyone other than Goodell as he destroyed all evidence before anyone outside league headquarters could review it then swept the entire incident under the rug.

The answer is, while Spygate could damage credibility, such things in today's world can be overcome. Just ask any athlete that overcomes a scandal. Bountygate would destroy cash flow, and that's harder to get back without having an outside party to blame. Just ask Wall Street and the real estate industry.

On Tap Tonight

Baltimore (0-0) at Denver (0-0)

In a scheduling snafu, the Ravens could not host the season opening game due to a conflict with an Orioles home game. Yes, I think that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in professional sports as well, and Sunday's Idiot of the Week will properly reflect such.

Regardless, we have the defending world champions taking on the AFC's Super Bowl favorite. Both are missing key defenders from last year and have had changes in their receiving corps. However, despite a transcendent playoff run, I maintain Joe Flacco is not an elite quarterback, and Ozzie Newsome's faith in Flacco, and fat contract, will go unrewarded. Flacco will not be able to operate the offense without his safety blankets of Pitta and Boldin, and his lack of adaptability will be exposed starting tonight.

Broncos over Ravens