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These issues are spread throughout many posts, over much time, so this is an attempt to focus the conversation.
1. The Top Job
Many have spoken of Goodell’s personal inability to handle the power and responsibility as the fundamental problem with the lack of success in punishing players. We can all be frustrated and disgusted with Goodell, and enjoy it when the press focuses on his arrogance as the issue; however, a job structured that way is going to be a magnet for an insecure megalomaniac. A competent senior executive who is offered unlimited authority without checks and balances is going to object, because it is a set up for being a scapegoat and a temptation that humans aren’t wired to manage well. The solution isn’t about getting rid of Goodell and installing another “better” person in the same job. The “police/prosecutor/judge” power needs to be distributed, and a process put in place that recognizes how people best function. That’ll attract a quality executive, and the NFL will stop having these horrible traffic accidents. In a way, by participating in the Goodell feeding frenzy, we distract from the core problem.
2. The Rest of the Management Team
What’s up with the NFL management hiring practices? These are incredibly cool jobs. If a normal search for the best candidates available were done, they would be able to get incredibly good people from a variety of industries, and the NFL front office would be a high performing team. Really, if people can move from biotech to banking, and from textiles to transportation, I think smart, experienced people can figure out the NFL. It isn’t rocket science.
And with the anti-trust exemption, the jobs are in a manner a public trust; there is a greater-than-normal responsibility to fill them with the best available people. I don’t understand why the handful of owners that are personally successful, and thus should know better, allow this to go on. It violates every Human Resources staffing practice developed in the past forty years. (Do they keep hiring Jets executives because they won’t have to pay moving expenses?)
3. Language
Everyone on our side seems to fall into the trap of answering the question, “So you are saying Brady didn’t know about deflated footballs?” Heck, even his father did on that radio interview posted here. It is a “Have you stopped beating your children?” question. No footballs were deflated (no act was taken to remove air from the Patriots footballs). The air pressure was measured and they were shown to have normal pressure readings for the conditions. That’s it.
And, while on the topic, the Patriots didn’t “cheat” when they had a camera in the wrong location a few years ago. They violated a League memo. There’s a huge difference. People keep saying the Pats are convicted cheaters and not challenged about it. What is cheating in pro football? There are teams and players punished for things every year that are more closely aligned with the word “cheating” than anything talked about with the Pats. When people use the word, they need to first be asked to define it, in behavioral terms.
There’s more, but that’s the top of my list.
1. The Top Job
Many have spoken of Goodell’s personal inability to handle the power and responsibility as the fundamental problem with the lack of success in punishing players. We can all be frustrated and disgusted with Goodell, and enjoy it when the press focuses on his arrogance as the issue; however, a job structured that way is going to be a magnet for an insecure megalomaniac. A competent senior executive who is offered unlimited authority without checks and balances is going to object, because it is a set up for being a scapegoat and a temptation that humans aren’t wired to manage well. The solution isn’t about getting rid of Goodell and installing another “better” person in the same job. The “police/prosecutor/judge” power needs to be distributed, and a process put in place that recognizes how people best function. That’ll attract a quality executive, and the NFL will stop having these horrible traffic accidents. In a way, by participating in the Goodell feeding frenzy, we distract from the core problem.
2. The Rest of the Management Team
What’s up with the NFL management hiring practices? These are incredibly cool jobs. If a normal search for the best candidates available were done, they would be able to get incredibly good people from a variety of industries, and the NFL front office would be a high performing team. Really, if people can move from biotech to banking, and from textiles to transportation, I think smart, experienced people can figure out the NFL. It isn’t rocket science.
And with the anti-trust exemption, the jobs are in a manner a public trust; there is a greater-than-normal responsibility to fill them with the best available people. I don’t understand why the handful of owners that are personally successful, and thus should know better, allow this to go on. It violates every Human Resources staffing practice developed in the past forty years. (Do they keep hiring Jets executives because they won’t have to pay moving expenses?)
3. Language
Everyone on our side seems to fall into the trap of answering the question, “So you are saying Brady didn’t know about deflated footballs?” Heck, even his father did on that radio interview posted here. It is a “Have you stopped beating your children?” question. No footballs were deflated (no act was taken to remove air from the Patriots footballs). The air pressure was measured and they were shown to have normal pressure readings for the conditions. That’s it.
And, while on the topic, the Patriots didn’t “cheat” when they had a camera in the wrong location a few years ago. They violated a League memo. There’s a huge difference. People keep saying the Pats are convicted cheaters and not challenged about it. What is cheating in pro football? There are teams and players punished for things every year that are more closely aligned with the word “cheating” than anything talked about with the Pats. When people use the word, they need to first be asked to define it, in behavioral terms.
There’s more, but that’s the top of my list.
