Jerry-rigged bloodless coup not the answer
Jerry Jones is an Arkansas boy who made his money with oil, won two Super Bowls within his first five years as an owner, and built a football stadium that looks like a spaceship that featured cage dancers. The practice facility alone cost $1.5 billion. The NFL’s director of officiating once had to deny that hanging out on one of the two Dallas Cowboys party buses influenced some missed calls that helped Dallas in a subsequent playoff game. Jerry once entertained then-New Jersey governor Chris Christie in his luxury box two days after Christie, as recounted by the Wall Street Journal, “personally pushed the Port Authority to approve a lucrative contract for a firm part-owned by Jones.” Life is full of funny coincidences.
If you were going to write a cartoonish Dallas Cowboys owner, Jones could only fit that profile better if he actually wore a cowboy hat and shot six-shooters in the air wherever he went. So of course he’s the one making a run at the commissioner. Now, you might agree Roger Goodell does not deserve nearly $50 million (U.S.) per year, a private jet for life, and lifetime health care for his family, which in the NFL is a dark joke. But rich men get away with a lot that they probably shouldn’t. At least, until the revolution comes.
But Jerry is threatening lawsuits, so the NFL sent a threatening letter to Jones, obtained by The Associated Press. The letter talks about fines, lost draft picks, suspensions, the little things. But the big bomb is the term “conduct detrimental,” which alludes to league regulations that hypothetically allow Goodell — or at least the NFL’s executive committee — to force the sale of a team, with the approval of 24 of the 32 owners. In cowboy terms, it was like slowly pulling open your jacket at a tense moment in a saloon to reveal some six-shooters in your waistband, alongside a small nuclear weapon.
Of course, 24 is the same number of owners it would take to remove Goodell. So either Goodell has the votes, or Jerry does. This doesn’t feel like bloodsport yet, not really: everyone’s threatening and blustering, shooting guns at feet rather than people. Jerry had his lawyers send a letter; Roger has his lawyers send a letter. The odds seem to favour ol’ Rog.
But Jerry Jones isn’t going anywhere. If you are an owner, why would you put your hand on the lever to open a trap door under the feet of another owner of the club? Because if nothing else, it means that trap door could one day open under you.
The idea of open rebellion, on the other hand, is new. Goodell is suddenly talking about not wanting to stay too long. Jerry might not win this round, but it sure feels like Roger, bumbling corporate titan of industry, isn’t inevitable anymore. If there’s a better salesman in the NFL than Jones, he hasn’t been discovered yet.
But let’s say Jerry finally sells enough owners on a new commissioner, now or later. What would change? This week the league was accused by numerous former players of intentionally mucking up the payments in the NFL’s class-action lawsuit settlement over concus- sions. Only 10 per cent of applicants have been approved; the system seems designed to fail at the players’ expense.
Jerry and Roger can joust all they want. But in what universe would a new functionary, hired by these owners, be anything but a more competent executor of a league with bad intentions? Paul Tagliabue was more competent than Goodell, and he put his personal physician, a rheumatologist, in charge of a tobacco industry-like denial of the dangers of concussions. The NFL — and Jones in particular — has always tried to dominate the players, shortchange health and safety, and trick parents into thinking football for children is safe.
If Jerry Jones is driving the party bus, the NFL might be more effective at making money. But it sure as hell won’t get better.
Last week this space went 6-7-1, after its first winning week of the season. Sue me. As always, all lines could change.