Had N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell watched the chilling Ray Rice elevator video through the lens of a father whose daughter was being beaten or a brother whose sister was knocked cold or a son whose mother was dragged and dropped outside an elevator, his actions surely would have been swift, severe and, most likely, permanent.
He would have not cared who instigated the fight. Rice would have been history back in February, banished from pro football with little hope of return.
Instead, Goodell and his lieutenants seem to have viewed Rice’s violence through the prism of corporate protectors whose first responsibility is to protect the shield — N.F.L. shorthand for Goodell’s role as guardian of the interests of the 32 owners for whom he works.
Goodell blundered badly, concluding that merely slapping Rice with a two-game suspension and having the Baltimore Ravens running back issue an apology and using public support from the woman he attacked, now his wife, was a bridge to absolution — for Rice, for the Ravens and for the N.F.L.
Public outrage, however, forced Goodell to admit that he had got it wrong, and only the release of the full video on Monday by TMZ compelled the Ravens to release Rice and forced Goodell to do what he should have done months ago.
But Goodell has never made a secret about his priorities. He talked openly about them in 2010 when he addressed first-year players during the N.F.L.’s annual rookie symposium.
“I talked on personal conduct,” Goodell told reporters at the time of his message about how they represented themselves and the N.F.L. “I didn’t speak about anyone in particular in that case. But I did talk about what I call protecting the shield. My job is to protect the integrity of the N.F.L.”
Clearly Goodell did not have the Rice nightmare in mind back then, but his curious actions in the case have done the league and its owners a disservice.
“This was not a legal issue, this was not even a league issue,” said Mike Paul, the president of the Reputation Doctor, an image consulting firm. “This is a moral issue. This is a women’s issue. This is a domestic violence issue. And those issues rise above the law and the game.”
Paul, who said he had worked with the N.F.L. on other cases, said the league’s approach to Rice was flawed from the outset because it thought about the law first, the league second and money third.
“I don’t blame them for that,” Paul said. “That’s their training. But there needs to be other top experts who have a voice in the room who aren’t yes people to guide them to understand.”
Goodell, it appears, put protecting the league’s interests ahead of a rigorous pursuit of the facts of the case.
Penn State made the same mistake three years ago. Its actions in the Jerry Sandusky affair dragged the university into one of the worst scandals in major college football history, all because protecting the Penn State brand became more important than protecting the victims. The N.B.A. learned the same lesson this summer, when years of looking past the actions and attitudes of the former Clippers owner Donald Sterling blew up in the league’s face with — just as in the Rice case — the release of a recording by TMZ.
At what point does the preservation of the institution become the highest priority? And if the preservation of the institution is deemed the highest value, what compromises of decency will be made?
There was a time when sports were held dear as a respite from the rigors of daily life, and even as a building block of character. Not any longer; the steady infusion of money and fame has made sports one more corrupt institution.
“There is no real honesty, no one honest institution in America that we can point to,” said James Forbes, the senior minister emeritus of the Riverside Church and president of the Healing of the Nations Foundation, which promotes the spiritual revitalization and healing of America. “It’s all about money over value: hit the referee, take steroids in order to enhance performance — to make more money.”
October is Domestic Violence Abuse Month. Don’t be surprised if the N.F.L. is the object of rallies and demonstrations, especially at games involving teams that employ players convicted of domestic violence. The disturbing footage of Janay Palmer being knocked cold in a casino elevator has set off a firestorm of protest and denunciation that threatens to overwhelm Goodell and the N.F.L.
Frustrated, embarrassed and wounded, she took to social media on Tuesday to vent her anger at the news media. Her point was that she is not someone’s “cause,” but merely a young African-American mother with one daughter and an unemployed husband.
In a heart-wrenching post on Instagram, she said: “I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I’m mourning the death of my closest friend.” Admonishing the news media to grant her family privacy, she wrote: “THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get.”
Unfortunately, for the Rice family, a domestic dispute triggered a national firestorm, and Goodell’s wrongheaded course of action created a chain reaction of missteps. That has brought us where we are today: to a star player banished, to a powerful league embarrassed, to a wife and a mother bewildered, and to a commissioner clinging to his credibility and, possibly, to his job.