Tuesday night, President Barack Obama will address his flustered nation, attempting to soothe their economic, health care, and environmental worries. Obama will likely be realistic with Americans at times and overly comforting at other points. Americans are not the only group that needs comforting and reality spoken to them at this time: NFL fans need a good ‘ol fashion speech.
Roger Goodell (NFL), Bud Selig (MLB), David Stern (NBA), and Gary Bettman (NHL), the big four commissioners in professional sports, work behind the scenes for primarily all of their duties. They seem to only make public appearances during their respective sport’s championship game as they pass out the trophy or when they must discipline an athlete and SportsCenter plays clips of their punishment rulings nonstop.
Roger Goodell should shadow the annual State of the Union address made each January by the Prez and provide an NFL State of the Union. Fans fear that a lockout looms next fall and the awkward two-week break before the Super Bowl serves as a perfect time to cool the nerves of non Pack or Steel fans. On second thought, as a big Bears fan, for the sake of my health, not having to suffer through another Lovie Smith press conference or Jay Cutler interception parade may do me well.
Football fans hope that there will be football on Sunday come next fall but we really don’t know what the chances are of both sides settling. If Goodell were to actually make this speech, he’d likely spend the whole time telling us that “there will definitely be an NFL season in 2011” and football fans have “nothing to worry about”; however, fans want to know the IFs.
If there is a lockout, how will the 2011 Draft work? What will happen to players contracts: will they be paid for not playing, will a deal with three years left on it still have three left after the strike season? How big of an impact will a strike season have on college football attendance and TV ratings? Most importantly, if there’s no football on TV, what in the world are we supposed to do on Sunday?
Serving since 2006, Goodell is by far the least tenured of any of the big four comishes. Selig, Stern and Bettman all have seen lockout-shortened seasons. Goodell obviously won’t ever have a State of the Union address for NFL fans; however, my point is that transparency is essential. A solid line of communication between four parties (Goodell, the owners, the players and the fans) could prevent Goodell from falling into that list of current commissioners with strike shortened seasons under their belts. If the players and owners can communicate effectively, they will have established a form of bipartisanship that the U.S. Congress continues to search for.
Obama may not fix America, but in the name of any football God that rests up there, lets hope Goodell can fix the NFL.
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