Following the release of the elevator footage showing Ray Rice punch his fiancé, I texted my friend Joe: “What’s your over/under?”
He immediately replied “For Goodell? 7 days.”
I think it is telling that my friend knew exactly to what I was referring. And we weren’t the only ones. Many people were starting to call for Goodell’s job. Indeed, the National Organization of Women was demanding his resignation even before the video’s release.
I didn’t agree with Joe that it would be as quickly as a week. My response was one month. I am still within that window, though I now suspect it might be a little longer than a month. Nonetheless, I will be shocked (and disappointed) if Goodell is the commissioner by the start of next season.
Why he should go:
I do not know if Goodell ever saw the infamous tape. I am not sure how relevant it is either. Either way, Goodell comes off poorly. The best case scenario is that he is incompetent and the worst case is that he is lying and covering all this up. In either case, he demonstrates that he is not fit to be the commissioner.
Why he will go:
Almost everyone agrees with that, but many think that this won’t matter. Goodell is protecting the owners and that’s his job. He has made them a lot of money and so they are not going to dump him.
To the latter: Curious George as NFL commissioner would have been able to generate the revenue that Goodell has. The NFL is essentially on auto-pilot; Goodell doesn’t seem to have done anything revolutionary and novel to grow the NFL’s revenue. He has been, to this point, a decent steward, but then any decent executive could have done the same.
To the former point, I do think that this is the view of many owners at this point. Goodell is taking the heat and they are shielded for the most part from the public’s ire. Ultimately, though, the owners want this off the headlines and to go away. The thing is that as long as Goodell is in charge, it won’t. It doesn’t matter what moves he makes: so-called independent investigations, commissions to revise policies, etc.. These might be the right moves to make at this point, but no one accepts that Goodell is taking these moves in order to deal with the problem of domestic violence in the NFL. Even if that is the primary motive, Goodell has no credibility. Every move he makes will be seen as just a PR move. You can see this in the responses to his press conference on September 19. The responses from fans, players, media members, and so on, skewered him. No one took him seriously; they didn’t believe anything he was saying. And, importantly, NFL sponsors voiced their concerns publically. They haven’t pulled their sponsorship for the most part, but a public comment by the sponsors was a clear signal to the owners: they don’t take Goodell seriously either.
So, Goodell might be shielding the owners for now, but he has no credibility going forward to make the changes that will need to be made. And there is nothing he can do to restore that credibility.
The owners will hopefully recognize that they need to make a move, and soon, to begin to restore confidence in the league.
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The Sports Ethicist 
I’m not sure this won’t blow over. The Ray Rice scandal was inexplicably boneheaded but Goodell’s reputation on player conduct issues has been good compared to his predecessor and other sports commissioners.
I disagree that he’s been a caretaker. While it is true that anyone could manage the NFL, he has managed to double revenues while at the same time, cut the player’s percentage of those revenue without a labor stoppage. The NFL Network was a joke 8 years ago and is now a multi hundred million dollar property.
Remember, two years ago the concussion problem was going to be the NFL’s undoing. Now, it’s a PR strong point.
Nevertheless, I cannot understand how the Ray Rice situation was so mishandled. Whether Goodell stays or goes, I’d like to understand what he was thinking?