Peter King's lengthy profile of Goodell

He should have said somewhere, among all that self-serving mush, that he is and was a very lucky guy. That's all.

Joe Buck, to his credit, has always said he would be nowhere without his father.

 

Or the league and its hagiographers should just accept that his bloodlines played an enormous role in where he is, and they shouldn't try to snow us into believing otherwise. Different scale obviously, but I would put Goodell in the same rough category as George H.W. Bush -- a hard-working and earnest man who has done a lot with what he has been given, but someone who would be nowhere near that lofty position had he been born in the next room over.

 

Just read. Thought it was kind of choppy - move a series of vignettes and anecdotes stung together than a long form story.

Interesting that King used other SI reporters to do some of the work. Surprised that he would not have gone himself:

"Then there's Goodell's human touch. An SI reporter accompanied him on two road trips during the 2010 season, to Cincinnati in November and Minneapolis in December, and saw him connect with people both inside the game and on its periphery. Goodell conducted some private meetings but spent 12 hours in the public eye, from tailgating with Bengals fans to a late-night stop at a Minneapolis Arby's, and he never shut off the commissioner switch."

 

um, i'm guessing the s.i. reporter king is referring to is king.

 

I haven't read the story yet, but unless King writes using the first person at all, I'm fairly sure he's referring to himself in that second you bolded. It wouldn't surprise me at all if King had some reporters contribute to his piece. That's standard for a lot of pieces in the magazine. But phrasing it like that is just standard 3rd-person feature writing when the writer wants to refer to himself.

 

geez louise, what is the point, exactly, regarding whether roger's dad knew tags, played a role in influencing the nfl to hire his 'silver-spoon son' as a freakin's PEON who was lent to the jets for a season to work under a sleazebag assistant p.r. director who treated him like a piece of crap, whatever?

IF roger's last name played a role in getting his foot in the door at the nfl, sheesh, think whatever you'd like. it wouldn't make roger a rarity in terms of knowing someone who helps he/she get their foot in the door. it's what you do with getting your foot in the door that matters, and roger worked his tail off while going to school on the wisdom of rozelle and tagliabue, not a bad 1-2 punch as mentors.

you really believe the 'silver spoon' got goodell to where he stands today? you've gotta be a pretty bitter person to keep harping on that 28 years after roger entered the league office as the lowest man on the totem pole. like many success stories, he took full advantage when the door opened just a crack. crap, he blew that door off its freakin' hinges.

does that mean he's a great commissioner? well, his employers certainly believe so -- the owners have one primary requirement of their commissioner, to make them richer. and the league just continues to be a golden goose that is the envy of every other business i can think of.

of course, this is not yet the barometer for roger; these cba negotiations are his waterloo, his cuban missile crisis, etc. whatever his legacy as nfl commissioner is going to be will be written in the coming months.

silver spoon or not, roger goodell has worked tirelessly to get to where he stands now. again, i'm not making a judgment as to whether he is or isn't, will be or won't be, a great commissioner (whatever that is, exactly). but i damn well will make this judgment: roger goodell is a man worthy of anyone's trust, a man whose heart is in the right place.

 

Humpty Dumpty could be in the commissioner's office and the league would continue to generate a shitpile of money.

 

I'm pretty sure that's what I said right here:

Meanwhile you have gone from "he didn't have a silver spoon" to "so what if he had a silver spoon." I don't understand why you can't acknowledge the advantages he got from his upbringing, but this is just a message board so that's OK. I really, really can't understand why the league and now Peter King have set out to remake Goodell in the Horatio Alger image.

 

As for that "An SI reporter" reference, I figured it was King as soon as he mentioned the late-night stop at Arby's.

 

c'mon, dude, the 'silver spoon' allowance i granted there was just to make a point that regardless of whether you put that tag on him or not he worked his way up. i dunno that peter or anyone else calls roger 'horatio alger.' that would obviously be as inaccurate as the use of 'silver spoon.'

in this case, 'silver spoon' would mean roger inherited the position he had or was born into it. that's a gross. unfair exaggeration. roger was born into a successful american family, not unlike millions of other people. he did not grow up in a family that had anything to do with the nfl. he was the only member of his family in the league and entered at a bottom-rung position. if you'd like me to acknowledge that his father's reputation didn't hurt his opportunity to enter the league, fine. heck, my first newspaper gig was as a copyboy at the n.y. daily news in 1978. i got the job onterview because a guy my dad knew in the GARMENT INDUSTRY played golf with the personnel v.p. at the snooze. then, starting at the bottom (like roger), working the lobster shirt for 20 months and doing every menial job while learning all i could by watching, listening, inquiring, etc., became a sportswriter at the snooze in less than two years.

was mine a 'silver-spoon' tale? of course not. the connection got me from point 'a' to point 'b,' but i did the rest to get to 'z.' you want to believe roger's dad being n.y. senator for less than two years 13 years before he landed with the nfl helped him get his first job with the nfl? fine, let's go with that. but how does his ascendance to commissioner then warrant the 'silver spoon' tag.

it's just silly. and unfair. and it's also unfair to say that peter king or anyone else has ever tried to sell roger as a 'horatio alger' story.

i'm just trying to practice some fairness and accuracy on the SportsJournalists.com 'journalism' board.

and your assertion that roger's 'bloodlines' played an 'enormous role' in his ascension is also a gross exaggeration. let's say his 'bloodlines' played an 'enormous role' in getting roger's foot in the door as a 23-year-old peon. the rest of his tale from that point over the last 27 years has been written by him.

 

I liked Goddell a lot more after reading the story.