The Hatfields And The McCoys

When it comes to the blood-feud that seems to have erupted between Jerry Jones and Roger Goodell, I am living in the great state of confusion.   I understand that Jones may be mightily angry about the 6-game suspension for Ezekiel Elliott but Jones and Elliott and the NFLPA all fought that issue out in court and it appears to be over.  Moreover, I cannot imagine that Jones would be that upset about having a player suspended since a season rarely goes by without at least one member of the Dallas Cowboys sitting out a stretch.

For a while I thought that Jones had designs on letting Goodell’s contract lapse and then maneuvering himself into the commissioner’s slot.  It happened in MLB when Bud Selig did that; it happened in the old NFL when Bert Bell transitioned from owner of the Eagles to NFL Commissioner.  That was an “interesting theory” but I have to discard it now because naming a new commissioner requires a super-majority vote of the 32 owners and for the last several months, Jones has been pissing off his fellow owners on a pretty regular basis.

Specifically, he has criticized the committee of owners who were tasked with negotiating Goodell’s contract renewal and the member ship of that Compensation Committee contains a lot of “NFL blue blood”:

  • Arthur Blank
  • Clark Hunt
  • Robert Kraft
  • John Mara
  • Bob McNair
  • Art Rooney

ESPN’s Outside the Lines has a report in ESPN the Magazine that goes over the events leading up to this blood feud and some of the events that have gone on in the midst of that blood feud.  It is a long piece, but I commend it to your reading.  In that report, the authors, Dale Van Atta and Seth Wickersham, quote Jones in a phone conversation with Goodell at the point when Goodell informed Jones of the suspension decision for Ezekiel Elliott.  Here is that quote:

“I’m gonna come after you with everything I have,” Jones said. Then he mentioned Deflategate. “If you think Bob Kraft came after you hard, Bob Kraft is a p—y compared to what I’m going to do.”

I recall hearing a song with the lyrics “…haters gonna hate”.  Maybe this is a case of a billionaire owner just being a billionaire owner who just does not allow anyone to tell him something he does not want to hear.  I am not a mind reader or trained in any of the mental health disciplines, but I cannot get over the fact that I sense that there is an “antecedent event or events” that set the stage for all of this.  I wonder if we will ever know what it was…

Greg Cote had this observation about the feud in the Miami Herald over the weekend:

“The Jerry Jones-Roger Goodell feud is getting nasty. On the bright side, it’s a diversion from counting players who took a knee during the anthem.”

There is an owners’ meeting scheduled for December 13th in Dallas – Jones’ home turf no less – and since the contract has been in negotiation for about 5 or 6 months, one might imagine that the Compensation Committee might present the details to the assembled owners there.  Based on a report today, Jones asked Arthur Blank – Chairman of the Compensation Committee – if the new contract for the commissioner would go before the owners for a vote.  Blank reportedly said it would not because there has been a unanimous vote of the owners designating the Compensation Committee as the entity to negotiate this new contract and – importantly it would seem – has delegated to the committee the responsibility to get a deal done in the name of the NFL.

This is not over.  Somewhere in the cosmos, Al Davis has a smirk on his face…

There are about 90 days until the Winter Olympic Games begin in PyeongChang, South Korea.  The Olympic torch has already left Greece and will make its way to Korea via the moon – or something nearly as relevant.  The games will be telecast here in the US by NBC and its family of networks and platforms and whatevers.  Today I read that they plan to live stream 1,800 hours of stuff from those Winter Games.  Those presentations are in addition to all the programming that NBC will be delivering over the airwaves and cable providers in prime time and on weekends.

Before anyone asks, let me make two things clear:

  1. I have no idea what the content of 1,800 hours of live stream coverage will be.  I suspect that much of the time will be even less riveting and less meaningful than the televising of the NFL Combine.
  2. I will not be watching much of the action in those games because I will be traveling during the festivities.

Scott Ostler had this report and comment in the SF Chronicle a while back:

“Sales are sluggish for tickets to the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February. Factors include high prices, a sagging world economy, and a reluctance to buy front-row seats for a nuclear holocaust.”

Finally, consider this comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Browns fan Chris McNeil has secured a Cleveland parade permit for Jan. 6 just in case the team completes a ‘perfect’ 0-16 season.

“Now comes the tough part: Convincing Roger Goodell to show up and hand out the participation trophies.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………