How can Goodell change his Legacy?
The Yahoo Sports NFL pod discusses Roger Goodell's legacy.
Video Transcript
TEREZ PAYLOR: One other thing I wanted to talk to you about, it was a section of your column where you mentioned that you posed the question did Goodell fail in his bid to persuade team owners on Kaepernick? I was hoping you could elaborate on that.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Part of what I wrote was there's this second bite of the apple for Roger Goodell because this was something that now, I think in retrospect, you have Matt Ryan coming out and saying Colin Kaepernick deserves an opportunity. You've got Malcolm Jenkins, who's had a prickly relationship with Colin Kaepernick over some of the social-justice stuff, coming out and saying this guy deserves an opportunity. Carlos Hyde-- you have a number of players across the league saying, hey, man, OK. Like, we're moving this forward. One of the things, as we move this forward, is this guy's got to be addressed.
And so what I basically said was, look, he's got a second bite at the apple to address now what even a lot of the critics, you know, who defended it in the past are looking back and saying that was wrong. That was a mistake. When he says we were wrong, they feel that's under that umbrella, including some players.
And what I was trying to get across was Goodell now has this opportunity to get it right. And if he can't get it right, he should say why.
And what comes out that is Joe Lockhart, who was on his staff as the head of communications, the head of public relations and public affairs, came out and he wrote a column. And he said, you know, we tried. We tried. The league office, myself, you know, Roger, multiple executives tried to get teams to sign this guy, and they just were not having it.
I want to hear that from Roger because for all these years we've blamed Roger. Roger has been the point man. I called him the pinata, the shield for the shield, all these different things. And I'm like, if that's true, Roger needs to break ranks. I know you make $40 million a year. I know your net worth is sick. I know all these different things. I know you've got a couple years--
TEREZ PAYLOR: He's made his money.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah, but you've made your money. Your contract runs out in 2023, and I think the league is going to turn the page.
I think this is Roger's opportunity to do one of two things-- either right the wrong, if he can, which would mean lean on teams, find the opportunity, make it happen. Or number two, come out and say I was wrong. This was wrong, but guess what? It was wrong because what Joe said was right. We tried to get teams to sign this guy. We tried to right the wrong, and they would not do it. To me, him breaking ranks would be better than not-- than just saying nothing.