Will Roger Goodell Ruin The NFL?

Roger Goodell is at it again in his mission to destroy football as we know it. The NFL commissioner, who was just re-signed to a five year contract extension, appeared on television recently exclaiming he would possibly ban the three-point stance from the game.

The three-point stance has been a part of the game itself since its beginning, and has actually existed longer than the actual football itself. The ball has gone through transformations in both shape and the materials used to construct it, yet the three-point stance has gone untouched.

The thought of taking the three-point stance away from the game is virtually akin to the game of baseball deciding to ban to use of bats. It makes about that much sense, but this is the nonsensical definition that embodies the Goodell administration.

An era of continued perpetuated confusion that has put the quarterback virtually in a glass bubble wearing a dress to separate from the rest of the competition. A faux pedestal aimed as a marketing tool more than to protect the leagues anointed golden child.

Goodell gives lip service that his reasons are to try to prevent injuries, but the words come from a man who led a privileged childhood provided by a New York Senator as the patriarch of the family. A man who hasn't played organized football since high school, and used his fathers connections to get a job with the NFL fresh out of college.

He was eventually taken under the wing of then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue, a lawyer who played the game of basketball in college and was as clueless as Goodell. It made for a perfect partnership where a fool mentored another fool on how to effeminate the action on the gridiron, prefer greed over honor and dignity that the NFL tries to claim they embody, and ostracize the players from their own union that is always led by a league owned puppet.

Through the years, the game of football has certainly shown that it has a violent side. The league and media likes to label the games as "wars" and "battles", where the participants are called "gladiators" and "soldiers". The men who play the game realize and embrace the violence in their quests to be champions.

With this violence comes injury. It is as much a part of the game as the flesh and blood that pushes against one another until the final whistle that signifies the end of the scrum. There have been innumerable broken bones, sprained and torn ligaments, concussions and more along the way in a game that has even cost many people their lives on the actual field of play.

Concussions have recently been in vogue for discussions in and around the NFL. Though there have been countless players whose quality of life was greatly hindered because of the game, the NFL has now taken a pretend stance on caring after decades of neglecting and totally ignoring these occurrences. One theory of this new found stance is because of the litigious possibilities that can be born, though the league has defeated other players lawsuits that tried to bring attention to this problem in the past.

Though gridiron legends like John Mackey and Mike Webster are amongst the most recognizable men whose lives were afflicted with brain injuries stemming from concussions, it took the NFL decades to even intimate they recognize the effects. Many retired players are currently sitting at home disabled and forgotten by a players union that obviously does not care about them and does not truly acknowledge their contributions to help make the game as wealthy as it is today.

A union that has so neglected the players they represent, many feel it is manipulated by the league. With the current strained labor relations between players and the league, it appears the lip service Goodell gives is a smoke screen to get the players to accept a contract for less than they truly want to offer to avoid the almost seemingly inevitable lockout on the horizon. Business as usual in the greed mode that Goodell exudes.

Now that it is evident the game has five more years of Goodell to destroy it further with his incompetent regime, the question will be what is next after he gets his way in taking away the three-point stance. Will they have players wear flags on their dresses while adopting the college overtime rule? Perhaps he will order all personnel to be castrated so they will become the benign eunuch that he is?

One certainty does arise with Roger Goodell at the helm of this massive monetary ship that barrels over the waters that carry it without concern of what lies in its wake. This is not your fathers NFL, nor is it even the NFL those old enough to read this article grew up with. It is much worse and worsens with each destructive day with the deficient Goodell in office.