I'm from New Jersey and have seen every episode of The Sopranos, so I like to fancy myself an expert in the field of keeping information "in the family." Roger Goodell, apparently, is not.Time and time again, the shroud of privacy that the NFL promises its players in certain situations turns out to be as thin as tissue paper; players are held to the tightest-lipped of standards while seeing that courtesy unrequited with every bolded headline exposing a player's "private" matters.
We got a repeat lesson on this hypocrisy this week, when four of supposedly 15ish players -- Saints Deuce McAllister, Charles Grant, and Will Smith along with Texan Bryan Pittman -- were outed as having tested positive for a diuretic that resides on the league's banned substance list. Results of these tests aren't supposed to be made public.
Forget the obvious systemic flaw that enables private matters to become public at all. If you're going to let loose lips turn your judicial branch into the Titanic, you might as well leave everyone without a life vest, instead of allowing some players to deal with the public scrutiny while others' reputations stay safe in anonymity.
Sadly, the league only has the players' best interests in mind when it itself benefits as well. So if Goodell doesn't want to initiate reform for the players, he should do it because these press leaks are damaging his league.
In an era where the media is growing at light speed, where there are a ton of voices looking to make names for themselves without feeling the burden of moral responsibility, the league is a target for bad press. The best way for a reporter to make a name for him or herself is to wait until the timing is right and unearth a juicy enough skeleton (who had ever heard of Josina Anderson before she outed the players above?).
It happened the day before the Super Bowl, when the Spygate bomb clouded the league's biggest day (at the expense of the Patriots players, who unfairly had to be distracted by something that wasn't true). And it's happened again, as the league prepares for its second date in what they hope is an eventual long-term relationship in London.
The stories today should be about Drew Brees playing his former team. About two underachieving teams looking for a spark. About one team that will have its back to the wall with another loss. About Philip Rivers making a statement this season and LaDainian Tomlinson looking human. Instead, the stories are about three Saints who, despite how stories voice it, didn't take steroids.
And it's only going to keep happening. Roger Goodell and the league seem to believe that they are an omnipotent, invincible cash cow. That certainly seems to be the case now. But while they don't have to answer to the players, they have to answer to festering press and the masses that ingest that press. And while I never expect them to cleanse themselves of controversy, they have to do a better job of keeping those proverbial levees in tact for fear that one storm eventually erases the entire city.
