NEW ORLEANS — Gosh, it was downright scary.
Run, commissioner, run for your life.
Roger Goodell had finally emerged from whatever NFL-fortified bunker in New Orleans has protected him all week and was facing
the music Friday, none of it snap-happy jazz.
There was jostling, there was shoving,
there were shouts and pointed questions and, despite tight security,
inflammatory follow-ups.
Even a few sneers and blatant eye-rolling. It was mob behavior at
its worst.
Oh, the humanity.
But give him credit. Goodell, Public
Enemy No. 1 in New Orleans, remained calm in the face of the adversity
and, soon enough,
the media horde on hand following his annual state of the NFL
address, gave up the chase and the league’s commissioner found
safe haven on the well-lit set of the NFL Network.
There was a nice diversionary tactic outside the Morial Convention Center’s media headquarters, too, where there was a timely
appearance by Mitch Ross, the deer-antler spray guy who’s at the center of this week’s Ray Lewis PED controversy.
The news corps broke ranks, with several units dispatched to pin Ross to the convention center wall and point loaded television
cameras at him.
The media’s flank thus exposed, Goodell had free reign for a carefree escape, from whence he walked briskly out onto the public
streets of New Orleans, seemingly with little or no concern for his own safety.
He appeared tan and fit, even well-nourished for a visitor whose mug famously appears in many New Orleans’ restaurants with
the strict, printed orders “Do Not Serve This Man.”
Perhaps the NFL sent along C rations.
Maybe he’s been wearing a Paul Tagliabue disguise all week.
If he wanted to take in the sights, maybe catch a real Mardi Gras parade, at least one float dissed him with a disparaging
papier maché depiction that was risqué even by New Orleans’ traditionally loose standards.
But Goodell, the NFL’s all-powerful Oz, stood there — no, he wasn’t wearing an “I Freed Sean Payton” T-shirt — and said he
couldn’t be happier to be in New Orleans this week.
Huh?
Talk to the locals where those signs
ban him from the premises, and they seemingly aren’t backing down from
the notion that
he sabotaged the beloved Saints’ season, mostly with, but
certainly not limited to, the year-long suspension of the head coach,
Payton, for his role in the pay-for-pain Bountygate.
Best I can tell, commuting Payton’s sentence by two weeks hasn’t been enough of a makeup gesture to appease them.
Yet, Goodell said (with a straight face) that the New Orleans hospitality has been downright invigorating.
“My picture is in every restaurant in the city,” Goodell explained, verily beaming. “I had a float in a Mardi Gras parade.
We even got a voodoo doll. I’m serious. People here have been incredible.”
OK, he’s got a sense of humor.
Fans being fans, he said, even if it’s at his expense.
“I understand the fans’ loyalty to the team,” he said. “They had no part in (Bountygate). They were completely innocent in
this.
“So I appreciate their passion. I saw that myself when I was down here during Katrina. And it’s clear that’s what they’re
all about. So I support the fact that they are passionate.”
So Goodell, who spent most of his press
conference vowing to make a collision sport injury-free, said he was
thrilled to be
in New Orleans and even happier that the Super Bowl is back in the
city that he helped repair. But he still has no regrets
about whatever part he may have played in making sure the gutted
Saints didn’t really even threaten to become the first team
to ever play the big game in their home stadium.
He perhaps offset any goodwill from Payton’s early release when he announced this week that he would not, as rumored, return
to the Saints the second-round pick in this year’s draft that he had deducted as part of their Bountygate penance.
He may love nutty Saints fans, but the hanging judge is not backing down from the severe penalties he dished out — even the
suspensions, later overturned, of players.
“There were clear violations of the
bounty rule for three consecutive years,” he said. “That’s not going to
be permitted
in the NFL. The reason why we’re not returning any of the draft
choices or any of the discipline because it occurred and it
should not have occurred.
“There’s no question that there was a
bounty program in place for three years. I think that is bad for the
players of the
game. I think the message is incredibly clear and I don’t believe
bounties will be a part of football anymore going forward.
“I do think that that message has come through.”
Give him credit. He’s probably right on that one. Even if the Saints had to be the Example A for the new kinder, gentler NFL.
• • •
Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com