With the news today that Judge Berman vacated Tom Brady’s 4 game suspension it becomes clearer that Roger Goodell is a failure as a chief executive. From a management point of view the headline should read: “Roger Goodell Fails Again”. Commissioner Goodell has now had 8 major suspensions overturned or reduced in his term as NFL commissioner: the bounty case against 4 New Orleans Saints players, the Ray Rice suspension, the Adrian Peterson suspension, the Greg Hardy suspension and now the Tom Brady suspension. None of the commissioner’s major decisions have gone unchanged. In the Brady case the judge ruled “the NFL Commissioner violated the league’s collective bargaining agreement”. It was a strong rebuke to the commissioner.

The arbitrator in the New Orleans Saints case was the former NFL commissioner and he ruled against the man who succeeded him. The Ray Rice case was a transparent attempt by the commissioner to enhance his personal image after the video of Ray Rice hitting his wife became public. The suspension he gave Rice was overturned by the court. In the Adrian Peterson case Judge Doty asked the NFL counsel if Goodell understood the collective bargaining agreement. That was a very public rebuke to the commissioner. And in the Brady case the judge mocked the Wells Report which Goodell paid over $3 million to produce and which Goodell used as the sole basis for his decision to suspend Brady. Five separate times in his 40 page ruling the judge referred to the Wells Report as an “independent investigation”. The quotation marks were used by the judge in his paper. The judge also referred to the Goodell decision as “unfair”. In two of his three findings the judge noted the NFL’s unwillingness to cooperate with the Brady legal team: the NFL would not make General Counsel Dave Pash available for questioning, and they denied the Brady legal team the opportunity to examine the investigative files on the case. The NFL attempted to punish Brady for lack of cooperation and then proved in the final analysis to be far more uncooperative than Brady.

Today the NFL commissioner announced he would appeal the ruling. In two cases he has been cited by the judge for a lack of understanding of the collective bargaining agreement. Yet he persists in going forward and bringing further embarrassment to both him and the NFL offices. His action today begs two questions:
1. Why? Why go back to court and be further embarrassed?
2. Why are the NFL owners allowing him to run amok and remain in office?

Question One: Why?

In my opinion the commissioner is exhibiting classic narcissistic behavior. Narcissists do not learn from their mistakes, nor do they admit they are wrong. This is the 8th time Goodell has been proven wrong in a major decision. At what point will he learn from his errors? In my opinion he won’t learn from his mistakes until he is removed from his office. Eight successive times he has been proven wrong, and twice he has been chided from the bench for not understanding the collective bargaining agreement with the NFL players. The legal community has sent strong shots at him. But narcissists do not tolerate criticism. They consider themselves unique and believe they should receive special treatment.

The commissioner has stated he is returning to court in the Brady case to “protect the integrity of the game”. The major point he seems unable to recognize: it is he who is affecting the integrity of the game. It is his integrity that is in question as well as his ability to perform his duties as commissioner. Another visit to a courtroom may make that clear to everyone including him.

I discuss narcissists in my new book “The Square Pegs” which is currently in edit. They represent a huge challenge to the businesses that employ them.

I’ll discuss question two and the role of the NFL owners in a separate blog next week.

Today we learned that Roger Goodell has failed again in his role as the manager of the NFL.