NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says he is taking his time deciding what to do about Tom Brady because he wants to make sure the process is “fair and open.”
The words “fair” and “open” are uncomplicated ones, and yet here we sit waiting for a leader who has never shown much interest in the actual meaning of either.
Goodell will surely cut Brady’s four-game suspension. It was a wild over-reaction in the first place to a minor offense the league had rarely been checking for, anyway. Brady and Peyton Manning asked for the ability to manipulate footballs prior to games back in 2006 and the NFL acquiesced without bothering to put in a strict protocol for making sure those balls stayed legal.