Roger Goodell believes NFL officiating is at an all-time high, dodges question on diversity at NFL Media

BOSTON -- You watch the NFL. Roger Goodell runs the NFL. Yet when you sit down to watch the game on Sundays, you're likely seeing things a lot differently than the commissioner.

That much was apparent on Wednesday, when Goodell sat for his annual Super Bowl week "press conference." It's a press conference only in name, really, as the number of pointed questions for the commissioner is grossly disproportionate to the number of controversies, scandals and firestorms in which the league constantly finds itself.

Nevertheless, reporters did manage to sneak in a couple of questions that the commissioner did not seem to care for.

Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports asked Goodell about the perception of poor officiating in the NFL, citing Mike Vrabel's public criticism, Tony Dungy pointing out a clear case of inconsistent officiating, and the replayed third down by Kansas City in the AFC Championship Game as some examples. Robinson also asked Goodell about Aaron Rodgers' stated belief that the most talented officials are leaving the NFL in order to work for TV networks and the big paycheck that accompanies such a move.

Goodell was asked if all of this resonated with him, and whether it needed to be addressed. His answer was, basically, no.

"Well, I would disagree with several of the points you're making in there," Goodell began.

After some brief filibustering -- which we'll get to in a moment -- Goodell offered up a real whopper of a line:

"I think for us when you look at officiating, I don't think it has ever been better in the league."

That sure is some assessment.

The theoretical list of officiating failures -- not mistakes, but failures -- would be long. But in a top-of-head scenario, head of NFL officiating Walt Anderson admitted that his office failed mightily when it did not stop the game to review a clear non-catch that had been ruled incorrectly on the field in Buffalo in one of the best Sunday afternoon games of the entire NFL season. (The fact that the officiating department is run by Anderson, who had some insanely dubious calls in his career and also lost track of the footballs on the night "DeflateGate" was born, is a massive issue in and of itself.) Officials in that same game missed 12 Bills defenders on the field for a key play. A genuinely puzzling roughing the passer penalty on Atlanta ensured that Tom Brady was able to finish off a win in October. To this day, the NFL can't get its definition of a catch straight. And the replay official in charge of "expedited review" in the NFC Championship Game might have been late to work a couple of Sundays ago.

This was all after Walt Anderson straight-up lied about a game-changing officiating gaffe that took place in a playoff game last year, just before suspect officiating marred the quality of the Super Bowl between the Rams and Bengals.

And any Saints fan who's still upset about one of the worst blown calls in sports history costing their team a trip to the Super Bowl has every right to remain miffed, even now, four years later.

The examples are endless. But to Goodell, officiating has never been better.

In the aforementioned filibuster, Goodell said "we like to go to the facts." He then stated that some of the officiating experts on TV were never on-field officiating. Yet in the group of Mike Pereira, Dean Blandino, Gene Steratore, Terry McAulay and John Parry, only Blandino has never worked as an on-field official. That is a fact. Goodell also referenced the replayed third down in Kansas City and said, "That happens frequently in our game. That's not an unusual thing to have that happen." Factually speaking, nobody can recall ever seeing a complete do-over of a play, let a complete do-over of a play on a critical third down in a championship game.

Nevertheless.

Goodell's other difficult moment came after a question from an NFL employee. Jim Trotter has worked for NFL.com and NFL Network since 2018, after working for ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. Last year, Trotter asked Goodell about the NFL's issues with diversity, equity and inclusion at multiple levels -- from ownership, to head coaching, all the way to the NFL's own media arm. Last year, Goodell vowed that the NFL would continue to try to get better.

But over the past year, Trotter has not observed any discernible change. So he asked the following question:

You and other league officials have said that the league's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion extend beyond the sidelines and beyond the front offices, and it's applied to all aspects of the company. I've worked in NFL Media for five years. During those five years, we have never had a Black person in senior management in our newsroom. That's a problem because we cover a league who, according to league data, the player population is 60 to 70 percent Black, which means that there is no one who looks like these players at the table when decisions are being made about how they are covered. More concerning is that for a year-plus now, we have never had a full-time Black employee on the news desk, which again is a problem because we cover a league whose player population is 60 to 70 percent Black, according to league data.

I asked you about these things last year and what you told me is that the league had fallen short and that you were going to review all of your policies and practices to try and improve this. And yet a year later, nothing has changed.

You know, James Baldwin once said that I can't believe what you say because I see what you do.

And so I would ask you as an employee, when are we in the newsroom going to have a Black person in senior management and when will we have a full-time Black employee on the news desk?

Goodell responded by ... denying personal responsibility, questioning the accuracy of Trotter's data, and speaking generally about a desire to make things better.

"Well Jim, I am not in charge of the newsroom. So what I think the -- can I answer your question?" Goodell said when Trotter tried to respond to that initial response.

"As you point out, it's the same question you asked last year," Goodell continued. "And we did go back and we have reviewed everything we've been doing across the league, and we are looking at everything from vendors that we're working with to partners that we're working with to ownership, where we've seen significant changes in diversity just this year. And I do not know specifically about the media business. We'll check in again with our people, but I am comfortable that we made significant progress across the league. I can't answer the specific questions. Some of the data you may have raised there may be accurate, maybe not. Last year, I was told some of it wasn't. We'll get to you on that. We want to make progress across the board, and that includes in the media room. And so those are things that we'll continue to look at and hopefully make real progress to. I can't answer because I do not know specifically what those numbers are today."

It was a rather combative answer for someone who purports to be aligned with the ethos of the reporter asking the question.

It's unclear what data Goodell was calling into question last year, when Trotter pointed out that 24 of 32 franchises have had either one or zero Black head coaches in their entire history. Trotter also noted that 13 franchises have never had a Black head coach, that there's never been a Black majority owner, and that there's only been one Black club president. If any of Trotter's numbers were slightly off, or if the league quibbled with the specificity of interim head coach labels, it's irrelevant to the larger point. Yet Goodell felt so threatened by Trotter's question that he sought to discredit the basic assertion that between 60 and 70 percent of NFL players are Black.

What that response means, ultimately, is next to nothing. It's been proven many times over by now that Goodell can dodge as many questions as he likes, he can lie and deceive and gaslight at his "press conference" as much as he wants, and the net result is ... zero. The man who loves and respects The Shield™ not so coincidentally serves as a shield for the owners. Everybody knows that, everybody understands that. Fans (and some media) don't like it. The owners surely love it. Every second Goodell spends getting fingers pointed at him is a second spent without a finger pointed at billionaire owners. And they pay him handsomely for serving that unique role -- one which most human beings would struggle to fulfill, but one that Goodell has excelled in for the better part of two decades.

That is, of course, the deal with Roger Goodell. So don't expect any of what he said or didn't say on Wednesday to gain much traction or remain in the public consciousness for too long.

Still, his answers on two key issues were wholly unsatisfactory, which means it's very likely that Trotter will be right back there a year from now asking a similar question. With a year to prepare, perhaps the commissioner can come up with a better answer.

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.