If Roger Goodell has been revealed as a puppet of NFL ownership this season, it seems that Robert Kraft is pulling the string.
GQ contributor Gabriel Sherman outlines Kraft and Goodell’s close personal relationship in a must-read feature story about the NFL’s year of scandal and controversy. Sherman writes Kraft carries so much influence with Goodell, that some consider him to be an extension of the commissioner’s office.
“Kraft has vigorously defended Goodell’s eye-popping $44 million pay package, and in the wake of the TMZ leak, he personally called owners and lobbied them to issue statements backing the commissioner, according to a senior league source,” Sherman writes. “So large is Kraft’s sway with Goodell that one veteran NFL executive likes to call him “the assistant commissioner.”
The piece begins with an anecdote from a chat Kraft had with Goodell Sept. 9, one day after TMZ Sports released the video of former Ravens halfback Ray Rice pummeling his now-wife Janay inside of an elevator in Atlantic City, N.J. last February. According to the article, Kraft and CBS CEO Leslie Moonves convinced Goodell to participate in an interview about the Rice incident on CBS News before the network aired the first of its eight Thursday Night Football games. Kraft is the Chairman of the NFL Broadcast Committee.
Goodell came off poorly in the interview, and told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell Rice was “ambiguous” about what had happened in the elevator that night. An ESPN report published just days after the interview refutes Goodell’s claims, and said Rice told Goodell exactly what he did to his then-fiancée inside of the elevator. (Sherman also reports Kraft and Moonves insisted a woman conduct the interview with Goodell.)
Kraft passionately defended Goodell on CBS This Morning the day before the commissioner’s interview with O’Donnell aired. Kraft exonerated Goodell of any wrongdoing, and made it clear he stood behind him.
“The way he’s handled this situation himself, coming out with the mea culpa in his statement a couple of weeks ago, or ten days ago, and setting a very clear policy how we conduct ourselves in the NFL, I thought was excellent,” Kraft said.
Football fans who have been spewing venom towards Goodell over the last six months should probably direct some of their rancor towards Kraft as well. Goodell may be the face of the NFL, but Sherman’s piece indicates that Kraft is its power broker.
That could be an important variable in the NFL’s ongoing Deflate-Gate investigation. It appears that the Patriots aren’t a renegade franchise that goes against the establish. They are the establishment.
