Josh Brown is disappearing. Roger Goodell is appearing to dis … everyone — from the victim to the police to the NFL’s ignorant fans, seemingly everyone except for the alleged wife-beater — to deflect blame for the league’s inadequate investigation and confounding discipline scheme.
ESPN reported Monday morning Brown is not expected to appeal the NFL’s decision to place him on the Commissioner’s Exempt List.
Of course, Brown still receives his full salary while inactive, essentially getting paid not to attempt two field goals per week. The Giants kicker’s initial one-game suspension is being re-evaluated in light of domestic abuse admissions Brown made in police files that were unsealed last week.
Amazingly — or not, at this point — Goodell’s comments on the case still skew toward scolding Brown’s ex-wife, Molly (“I viewed myself as God basically and she was my slave,” Josh Brown wrote in a journal entry) for not cooperating with the NFL’s shadow cops, and King County (Wash.) police for not supplying information, which the sheriff convincingly explained last week he would have done off-the-record.
“Well, you have to go and get the facts,” Goodell told the BBC in an interview this weekend on a trip to London. “We have asked repeatedly for those facts and the information that’s been gathered by law enforcement both orally and in writing. And we weren’t able to get access to it. So you have to make decisions on whatever information you have.”
He added: “That’s why we’d like to speak to the people involved whether it’s the victim or the people involved that may have information, including law enforcement.”
After a token “we take this issue incredibly seriously” and a “we’re not going to tolerate it,” Goodell had the gall to suggest that the commoners who follow the NFL can’t comprehend the reasons for cracking down on end-zone twerking and custom cleats while alleged wife-beaters escape even the “baseline” punishment of a six-game ban.
BBC: The criticism that comes back to you is that people see punishments for touchdown celebrations but then only one game for a domestic violence incident. It must be very difficult to balance those things and explain them?
Goodell: They are. I understand the public’s misunderstanding of those things and how that can be difficult for them to understand how we get to those positions. But those are things that we have to do. I think it’s a lot deeper and a lot more complicated than it appears, but it gets a lot of focus.