That’s the power of the Non-Stick Football League where commissioner Roger Goodell won’t be resigning as its Teflon don. Protection isn’t the main goal with the league’s familiar shield. It’s deflection.
There has been public outrage over Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, so much so that the conversation has become requisite discourse well beyond football. As for professional football, the game itself and multibillion-dollar entertainment product, that remains unscathed.
Even a star such as Rice or superstar such as Peterson, their absences, regardless of the horrible reasons for them, did more to help than hurt the NFL’s ever-booming popularity. There’s nothing like more attention and there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Fans who went the Ravens’ and Vikings’ home games the past few days still wore their favorite running backs’ jerseys with blind pride. We wondered if we should add Justin Forsett and Matt Asiata to our fantasy teams. Everyone still went to the games, everyone still watched the games.
Why would the owners want Goodell to step down? Even in some of his darkest hours, he’s still dong a bang-up job of keeping the green rolling in for them. It’s just a coincidence the league’s new big-money television foray, Thursday Night Football on CBS, opened with big midweek ratings last week. Twenty million viewers saw the Rice-less Ravens beat the Steelers.
The NFL has become so big that even most troubling situations with Rice and Peterson are gnats, swatted with no effect on the bottom line. It’s larger than real life, where its most popular players, quite literally, are looked at like comic-book superheroes. Immersed into that world, one can get caught make-believing that officials and opponents are the only real supervillains.
Looking to the NFL to be a moral compass is misguided, even if it says it’s trying to be just that, just as a company line. It’s sports show business. Not taking care of its former players and not evaluating the extent of on-the-job danger to its current players — see John Abraham walking away from the game with concussion-created memory loss — haven’t shook anyone to the point of non-consumption.
The mishandling of the Rice situation didn’t come close to doing that, let alone Rice’s unforgivable behavior. Rice is gone, and the machine keeps churning for the league and the Ravens. Whatever happens with Peterson, the league will just turn to the next superstar and the Vikings will just find another franchise face.
Goodell isn’t exactly Captain America, but he’s wielding a shield made of adamancy. When there’s a suspension or discipline that’s too long or too short, he still expects to the save the day and the league’s reputation with ease.
Once everything kicked off Thursday and Sunday, it was business as usual, and business is good. While many strong statements were made on television, none said to boycott the NFL.
Why do we still consume the NFL? Because It’s really not defined by Goodell or a few bad-apple players; it’s the overall product that’s made up of many great athletes — most of them good people — putting on an entertaining escape. The reality is, even the harshest reality doesn’t change that.
