Perhaps we’ve reached the point where it is officially permissible to feel a quiver of pity for Roger Goodell.
Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, came off a season in which he could not figure out precisely whom to suspend and for how long for varieties of grotesque domestic violence. His sport still tends to result in crushing head injuries. And he’s still wrestling with what to do about performance-enhancing drugs, for decades the rock candy of his brutal sport.
Now Goodell has come into possession of a damning report detailing the New England Patriots’ apparent deflation of footballs.