Richard Nixon, Oliver North, Roger Goodell.......

What is a criminal, a liar, and someone who is worse than both put together.  That's right.  Johnny Carson maybe dead and gone, but Carnac the Magnificent never dies.  I thought it seemed apt to present this post in this fashion because the NFL is doing everything short of reconvening the living members of the Warren Comission to investigate Goodell's actions, and the media played the video from inside the elevator like it was the Zapruder Film.  The media, and I mean ALL media, is spinning this story as if it were The Kennedy Assassination, Watergate, and Iran Contra all rolled into one, yet they choose to have the coverage be a parade of retractions, personal anecdotes, and self-righteous denunciations of Roger Goodell's actions.  They all failed to contemplate the biggest question.  Why. Why did Goodell only suspend Ray Rice two games in the first place knowing what kind of poop storm surrounded this story from day one?  The simplicity in the answers that have been given by the media to this question neglect some of the stories that surround this case, and it may point to a more nefarious answer that mirrors a totally different conspiracy the media does not want to touch.

People have likened this situation to the modern conspiracy situations, but one that may be the most accurate is the Julius Caesar conspiracy.  Think about it.  A ruthless leader who is perceived to have too much power is betrayed by the people around him in order to further their agenda.  It has been well documented that the NFL and NFLPA have been trying to get HGH testing in place since 2011.  Albert Breer and Dan Hanzus wrote about the breakdowns that occurred in the HGH testing talks a year ago.  The breakdown was caused by Roger Goodell's unwillingness to cede discretionary power in disciplining players to an arbitrator or independent council.  According to Breer and Hanzus's articles, this was a major sticking point for the NFLPA.  The NFLPA was unhappy with the way Goodell handled the Saints bounty case because they felt his decision was too punitive and unilateral. This ire for Goodell carried over into the HGH negotiations, and the NFLPA thought he should give up his disciplinary power to an independent judge or council.  Goodell thought otherwise, and we had a standoff of wills based on a dispute between a group of individuals who thought that one man had too much power in a given arena.  I say "had" because on Sept. 19, the NFL and the NFLPA magically agreed on a new drug testing proposal that included HGH testing protocol, and it set up a three to five person council to arbitrate appeals for violations of the substance abuse policy (funny how that little nugget is pushed towards the bottom of this EPSN article, and it is only stated in one sentence).  So the one thing that held up HGH testing for over a year is agreed upon by both sides merely days after the person whose discretionary power was the center of the dispute is publicly ridiculed by everyone in the country.  So did Goodell really believe that Rice deserved a two game suspension, or could he have been set up the NFLPA in order to get HGH testing in place and mitigate his role in substance abuse appeals?

There is a good amount of conjecture and circumstantial evidence that can support the possibility that the NFLPA may have been the impetus for Roger Goodell to hand down his lenient suspension on Ray Rice.  It is not hard to produce mens rea in this case. As stated above, the NFLPA was not happy with the way Goodell handled the Bounty Case, and they could not have been happy with the rate Goodell was suspending players under the old substance abuse policy.  Over 70 players have been suspended for substance abuse violations under Goodell's tenure.  So the NFLPA had good reason to want to marginalize Goodell's disciplinary influence on substance abuse violations, and they may have seen an opportunity in the Ray Rice incident to gain leverage on Goodell in this manner.  I have no solid proof that they set up Goodell, but I have a lot of conjecture and tantalizing coincidences that raise questions that will probably have no answer to them to support my claim, and here they are:

1) The NFLPA and owners needed to ratify the HGH testing procedures.  This is conjecture at its finest, but in this era of long term injury lawsuits that are being filed against the league, it may not be too far fetched to think of injury lawsuits buttressed by evidence of untested players using HGH to make them bigger and stronger.  "I got my concussions because the league was negligent in not testing its players for substances that enhanced their ability to hurt me" could potentially land a windfall decision for plaintiffs who decide to use it.  The NFLPA and the owners must have seen this possibility on the horizon and knew they had to get something in place to prevent this from occurring in the future, or to give them a plausible defense in case someone came out with that kind of lawsuit.  Goodell probably figured that out as well, and he publicly stated that he wanted to get a new drug policy in place, but he was unwilling to relinquish his power.  But the NFLPA had a plan.....

2) Lets assume that all the important people in this story knew that Rice knocked out his fiance, which is not that far fetched of an assumption with the latest information coming out.  This ESPN article alludes to a possible meeting between Steve Bisciotti and Roger Goodell at Augusta National Golf Course.  After returning from Georgia, Bisciotti publicly stated that Rice would be back.  It also states that after meeting with Ray and Janay Rice in June, Goodell made no concerted effort to obtain the entire video. Why would Goodell not want to see that video, regardless if Rice admitted to knocking out his fiancé? My assumption is that Bisciotti may have offered a quid pro quo to Goodell on behalf of the NFLPA at Augusta National.  Go easy on Rice and we'll agree to keep you on as the sole arbiter of substance abuse appeals and agree to your drug testing policy.  Goodell's megalomania got the better of him and he accepted without considering the position he put himself in.  Or, he felt that sacrificing a long term suspension for a man who deserved it in order to enact a drug policy that could help everyone in the long term was worth whatever public ridicule would ensue.  Or, Bisciotti knowingly deceived Goodell on the golf course in order to coax a lighter sentence out of him, knowing that it would make him look bad in the public eye that and lead to his credibility being tarnished.  Either way, Bisciotti may have deceived Goodell with a false offer or misinformation in order to set him up for a decision that would be tantamount to public relations death (E tu Brute?).  Doesn't this make more sense than Goodell suddenly going soft, especially when the public outcry to the first half of the video had been brewing for almost 6 months before he made his decision?  A trusted friend bringing a surreptitious offer of peace at a familiar place that keeps the king in power.  Sounds plausible, and it looks even better when you........

3) Remember that during this firestorm the NFLPA and owners agreed to a new drug policy that was being held up in large part to Goodell not wanting to give up his appellate power.  So they just miraculously came to a decision, on an issue that had been in dispute for three years, right in the middle of the biggest firestorm the NFL has ever seen?  Sounds like a pretty nice smokescreen to me, and even if Goodell wanted to say he was set up, would anyone believe him?  The Ravens and Bisciotti can sleep easy knowing that they have put enough plausible deniability in the public eye to keep the debate raging towards futility.  And they can also sleep easy knowing they left an out for their boy, namely Article 46 Section 4 of the NFL's CBA:
 One Penalty: The Commissioner and a Club will not both discipline a player for the same act or conduct. The Commissioner’s disciplinary action will preclude or supersede disciplinary action by any Club for the same act or conduct.
I wonder who turned the Ravens on to that little nugget when they released Ray Rice outright from his contract AFTER the Goodell suspension.

So there you have it.  I'm sticking to this story.  This whole domestic violence debate was created by the NFLPA and their vendetta against Roger Goodell.  The NFLPA used Steve Bisciotti to promise Goodell that he would retain his appellate power, a promise which they never intended to keep, so he would make a lighter sentence on Ray Rice.  The NFLPA knew this light sentence would set off a media bomb that would kill Goodell's public persona. They then used that media frenzy to push through a drug policy on their own terms; one that Goodell would be powerless to stop from going through.  You know, the one that got their players reinstated and allows them to do stimulants in the offseason without fear of suspension.  The one that also includes random HGH testing, yet the NFL is now keeping all of these violent offenders away from all team activities on the "Exempt List" citing that they need to take care of their legal issues.  It will be interesting to see if the new HGH testing only applies to "active players" because when a player is on the Exempt List they are not active, and only the commissioner can take them on and off the list. Think about it. What is worse than having your employees publicly ridiculed for being charged with domestic violence?  Having these same employees testing positive for a banned substance you knowingly did not test for in the past, and that may have led to their overly aggressive nature in those instances.  If that came out Goodell may go the way of Mussolini.  So Goodell has to do all he can to keep them away from testing, and in the NFLPA's mind their players (one of whom is a major money maker) are saved from more public scrutiny.  While everyone focuses on the domestic violence issue, which is big but no one will disagree that it needs to be changed, the NFLPA may have used it to pull of a massive coup and are now exploiting it for their own personal agenda. 

Houston: We're Thinking About Our Cousins

The Redskins 2014 season arrived, and not in the fashion that any Redskins fan could have anticipated.  If I told you that the Redskins would combine for 372 yards of offense, with 131 of those yards on the ground, plus Robert Griffin going 29 of 37; you would have thought we were going to score somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 points and beat a Texans team that had not won a game in almost a full calendar year.  Or, you would have thought that we were getting blown out, and Griffin had to put on another futile fourth quarter stat padder.  Alas, this team could only muster six points in a loss that can only be described as vintage post millennial Redskins football; two Redskin fumbles inside the opponent's ten yard line that came off of a tripped up handoff exchange and a receiver stripped of possession in the midst of executing a 48 yard pass play, giving up a blocked punt for a touchdown (our fourth blocked punt in two years), and allowing a 76 yard touchdown pass on a broken play where there was no pressure from the front seven and we relied on Bacari Rambo to A) single cover a speed receiver with no safety help on a crossing pattern because everyone else was out of position, and B) take proper tackling angles.  That's right.  This game came down to four plays that crippled a relatively well played game on both sides of the ball.  These four plays, along with a modest passing performance from Robert Griffin, have caused the Kirk Cousins fan club to furtively stroke their guns during Redskin press conferences in preparation for a perceived quarterback controversy.  A closer look at the positives and negatives of this game, however, make a quarterback controversy seem less imminent than one thinks.

Positives
There were a surprising amount of positives to take away from this 17-6 loss.  I agree with Griffin and Gruden that there are no moral victories, but isn't it nice to have a competent put/kick returner who can set up advantageous field position?  After Andre Roberts's first punt return, didn't you get that giddy feeling like "this guys is going to take it to the house on every punt return" a la Brandon Banks circa 2010?  It is nice to have that feeling again, and Roberts's 25 yard punt return set up the only score of the game for the Skins by giving them a 46 yard field to work with. 

Speaking of punting, how about Tress Way?  No, that is not another on-ramp project being built near Tysons Corner, he is the punter for your Washington Redskins.  His 49.2 yard punt average kept the Texans on their own end of the field when the Redskins offense could not get going in the first half.  This is a far cry from watching Sav Rocca, and his double chin, shank 15 yard punts from his own ten yard line.  I think we may finally have a challenger to Matt Turk's 99 Madden rating. 

The offense seemed to be clicking after the first quarter, and Griffin seemed to gain a more confidence as the game went on.  One needs to look no further than the third quarter stats.  Griffin threw for 123 of his 267 yards in the third quarter, and his touch on the Niles Paul fumble pass was exquisite.  Gruden was also able to mix the run and the pass with effectiveness in the third quarter, and credit needs to be given to the offensive execution after halftime.  Gruden also began moving the pocket for Griffin after the first quarter with the use of rollouts that kept the defense off balance, which allowed for the running game to open up. The offense did everything it needed to do to win the game, except score points, but their ineptitude at getting into the end zone should not be a prelude to an early Kirk Cousins appearance as the starter.  The offense played well enough to win, but the fact that they did not win leads to an analysis of the negatives

Negatives
Griffin has not learned how to maneuver in the pocket.  For all his athleticism, Griffin takes bad sacks in the pocket because he cannot avoid pressure in short spaces.  This is something that has plagued him his whole professional career, and it was on display against the Texans.  One sack came when he had DJ Swearinger bearing down on him and he did not throw the ball away.  One sack came when he chose to run outside the pocket and right into the pressure of three defenders, and the other came when he had JJ Watt pressuring him in full view from the right side and Griffin did not even attempt to avoid him.  I saw Colin Kaepernick yesterday avoid a sack from pressure that was behind him by stepping up in the pocket and throwing a 35 yard touchdown pass to Vernon Davis.  Griffin does not have that kind of pocket awareness about him, and he needs to develop it if we want to have a more dynamic passing game.

For all the accolades bestowed upon the defense, they could not come through in the end, and their lauded front seven did not do much to unsettle Ryan Fitzpatrick.  Their only sack came when Fitzpatrick bobbled a snap, and there was no consistent pass rush throughout the game.  The Texans's lone touchdown pass came because Fitzpatrick had all day to let DeAndre Hopkins run across the field, and the last two drives of the game were extended because we could not get to the quarterback.  The defense kept us in the game with big stops, but it was not like we were playing Payton Manning either. The defense needed to get the stops at the end and they came up short. 

The glass is still half full
As frustrating as this loss was, there are still things to be optimistic about.  The biggest thing is that it is the first game.  The Redskins still have time to rectify these mistakes, and two big mistakes were the fumbles that cost the Redskins one score (you have to assume that one of the field goals they would have kicked, had they not fumbled, would have been blocked).  If the Redskins can clean up the red zone turnovers I see a Kai Forbath game winning field goal being set up by a questionable roughing the passer/illegal hands to the face penalty against the Jags.  If not, get ready for the Cousins fan club to start loading their guns in preparation for all out assault.  Hail to the Redskins, baby.