NFL players should stop whining about Roger Goodell

NFL players and their union should stop complaining about Roger Goodell.

National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell is a hated man. Ask most players in the NFL what they think of him, and there won’t be many positive reviews. It is mostly thought that Goodell continues to be erratic and heavy-handed in his punishments, sometimes without much evidence to support his actions.

On Monday, it was reported that Goodell wants to interview Mike Neal, Clay Matthews Jr., Julius Peppers and James Harrison over the Al Jazeera report by Aug. 25. Should they decline to interview, Goodell intends to suspend each for 10 games. Matthews and Peppers and are primary pass-rushers for the Green Bay Packers, while Harrison is the pass-rusher of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Neal remains a free agent.

To those p[layers, they need not be angry with Goodell. They should direct their attention at DeMaurice Smith, the National Football League Players Association president. Smith negotiated the Collective bargaining Agreement back in 2011 that allowed Goodell to be the judge, jury and executioner on all things player discipline.

Smith could have bargained harder and the players could have told Smith that the deal was not satisfactory. Neither party did so, and now have to live with the consequences.

Goodell is not going anywhere. The NFL is more profitable than it has ever been in its 97-year history, and the 32 owners are reaping the benefits. To remove him would be risking that annual windfall, something no business man or woman would ever consider.

For now, the players are stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. They are going to continually face unilateral punishment from a man they generally loathe, and there is little recourse for them to explore.

Regardless how the situations of Neal, Peppers, Matthews and Harrison unfolds, Goodell will be blamed but incorrectly so. He was simply the beneficiary of a bad deal.