BY Marc Lawrence, PlaybookSportscom — Mike Freeman of the USA TODAY put it best when he opined, “We all know what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is. He is a human heat shield. He’s a protective blister on the backsides of the owners to prevent chafing.”
Goodell was paid $63.9 million each of the last two years. Forbes says that makes him one of the highest-paid leaders in all of American industry. The NFL owners are oligarchs, and Goodell is their $100 million flame-retardant suit.
Forbes also reports that his salary is more than five times larger than his commissioner contemporaries. The NBA’s Adam Silver and NHL’s Gary Bettman both earn, Forbes says, $10 million a year, while MLB’s Rob Manfred is paid $11 million.
This is cash well spent if you’re NFL owners. You don’t see any of them being grilled by Congress. But what’s clear is the vile owner of the Washington Commanders, Dan Snyder – who has ruled over a sewer system empire of alleged miscreants, misogynists, perverts, and gropers – didn’t testify before Congress last Wednesday.
This is what Snyder and the owners pay Goodell to do. They don’t pay him to be smart. They don’t pay him to be effective. They don’t pay him to be decent (among the oligarchs, decency is a weakness). They pay him to get his teeth kicked in before Congress so theirs shine, nice and untouched.
