Hard not to root for Jones
Cowboys owner, model villa in takes stand against NFL com mi sh
It was a lot simpler when you could just sit back and judge Jerry Jones for his avarice and his hubris.
Jones, the Dallas Cowboys’ owner, isa model villa in. He built a gaudy football stadium, helped by more than US$300-million from local government, and last year opened an even-more-gaudy-practice facility, complete with luxury hotel, the anticipated billion-dollar cost of which was, again, supported by funds from the local municipality and the school (!) district. His ego led him to boot the exceeding ly successful Jimmy Johnson from the team, and at 75 years old he continues to run the Cowboys’ football operations despite not getting to a conference finals since 1995. He’ s down played football’s brain-injury problem, sued the NFL when he didn’t get his way on licensing deals and, notably, publicly supported the league’s bumbling commissioner when almost no one else would.
And now it is hard not to root for him. For months Jones has been impeding the contract extension for that same commissioner that was as recently as August thought to be mostly a formality. Roger Goodell’s contract runs through 2019 and pays him an absurd US$42-million annually, and in the late summer the league’ s owners voted—unanimously—to let a small committee work out the details of the next contract.
Jones, though, flipped on Goodell, and is now said to be determined to make him take much less guaranteed money, and has threatened to sue (again) if his fellow owners do not agree.
This has been explained in some quarters as Jones belatedly coming to the realization that 40-something-million for a commissioner who has never seen a player-discipline matter that he couldn’t spectacularly botch, and who is presiding over a league that is facing many serious long-term challenges, is rather too much money. But it is also plain ly evident that Jones changed his mind on Goodell right about the time that the commissioner decided to suspend star Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott six games for violating the league’s domestic-violence policy.
ESPN published a report on Friday, authored by Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta, Jr., who holds a master’s degree in Jerryology, that said Jones was furious about the Elliott suspension, that Goodell had assured him that the allegations of physical abuse from a former girlfriend of Elliott lacked evidence, and that Jones considered the harsh sentence against one of his best players a complete betrayal.
And while one can certainly question the purity of Jones’ motivation— he didn’t seem to complain much when Goo dell suspended Tom Brady after one of his famously torqued investigations — it’s also true that the man has a point: Goodell is awful at this.
The Elliott case was supposed to be the test run of the NFL’s new domestic-violence policy, which was developed after Goo dell embarrassed himself and the league in the Ray Rice case. Instead of the half-assed investigation that blew up in Goodell’s face when more evidence emerged against Rice after a light punishment, the new policy would see league investigators spend much time and money before handing the results over to Goodell for consideration. One could wonder whether sports leagues should be in the quasi-judicial-investigation business at all, but at least the NFL could no longer be accused of not taking allegations against its players seriously.
And then Goodell went and botched the Elliott case anyway.
After a year-long investigation in which the NFL’s own lead investigator found the accuser to not be a credible witness and recommended against a suspension, Goo dell ruled in the opposite direction. Rather than offer transparency, the league kept its investigators’ concerns out of the ruling, instead issuing a letter with many damning details about what Elliott is alleged to have done to the former girlfriend in the spring of 2016.
While only Elliott and his alleged victim know what truly happened, Goodell’s handling of the case looks entirely like someone who, faced with difficult and contradictory evidence, decided he had to pick a side and then disregarded everything that might have supported the other side. It might seem unfair to the player, and through two months of appeals several courts have agreed, but this is ultimately a system in which the standard of proof is whatever the commissioner wants it to be.
It bears repeating that Jones was fine with all the other stuff that Goodell has overseen as commissioner: the foot-dragging on concussions, the shameless and dangerous move to weekly Thursday night games, the franchise relocations, the falling television ratings. Jones even played a lead role in some of that.
But if the Elliott matter, and his obvious bias in it, is the thing that finally turned Jones against Goodell, I am fine with that.
Friday’s ESPN report includes a money quote in which Jones is said to have told Goodell that he should want no part of the Wrath of Jerry. Invoking Pats owner Robert Kraft, once displeased with the Brady suspension, Jones said: “Bob Kraft is a p---y compared to what I’m going to do.”
I don’t think he said “party.” As that comment shows, Jones could easily alienate as many fellow owners as he brings to his side in his fight with Goo dell. The prospect of a great big squabble among the NFL’s high-and-mighty billionaires club? Iam fine with that, too.