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Roger Goodell Losing Credibility Over Handling of the Ray Rice Incident

Roger Goodell's credibility has taken a major hit with the release of the Ray Rice assault video. Despite a scramble of PR moves that would have made Archie Manning proud, the media and fans in general aren't buying it.

By cajuncommando58
Elsa

Don Banks of Sports Illustrated made some great points in Monday Morning QB.

I'm going to use this quote from Don's article, and give everyone a chance to give their opinions in the comments section. I'll also include a poll at the end.

His Job Is Safe, His Credibility Is Shot

Two years ago, Roger Goodell told the New Orleans Saints that ignorance was not a suitable defense in the Bountygate scandal. In the wake of the second Ray Rice video, the NFL commissioner is using that same defense, and his credibility is slipping away

And that's the crux of the matter, isn't it? During the "Bountygate" affair, Roger told Sean, Mickey and all parties involved, or not, that "ignorance is not an excuse."

This is a really good article by Banks, and I don't want to use it all here, but I highly recommend you click the link and read it.

Basically the facts are, that Roger either failed in his initial investigation, or is trying to save face due to the PR backlash that has followed the release of the video by TMZ.

By failing to responsibly insure that he had all the facts of the case before handing down his discipline - something Saints fans accused Goodell of doing during Bountygate - Roger has tarnished his own reputation as well as the NFL Shield he so staunchly professes to defend. It's too late to go back and say I made a mistake, now that the public's outrage has surfaced. I'm sorry, saying that the video had not been released to him just isn't good enough. It was his duty to obtain all the facts, or hold off on handing down his judgement. A delay in the suspension would have been preferable to retroactively changing it after the facts hit the web.

At the end of the day the big story is the assault itself, but by bungling this one, Mr. Goodell has brought his judgement and reputation, as an arbitrator of justice, into question. If he couldn't get this one right, how do you accept, future disciplinary actions, he takes against the players. In my opinion it's time to separate the League and Owners mouthpiece, from this necessary function of the league.

Yes, the players need to be held accountable for their actions but it's time that fairness and consistency is re-instated in the proceedings.

Breaking late addition to the story!

If this is true, there should definitely be serious consequences.

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