The Saints got the rawest deal of them all, IMHO. I'm on record here as saying the underlying 'crime' in DGate is way, way overblown....But IIRC the Saints actually had less than average personal foul penalties as a team that year. Yet they had a guy suspended for 8 games (Hargrove) for 'obstruction', and Payton got the entire year when the league acknowledged he had no knowledge of the bounties. Could you imagine the outrage here if BB was suspended under the "ignorance is no excuse" standard applied to the Saints?(!)
I'm in total agreement with the general spirit of this thread -- that Goodell has vast, unchecked powers which he abuses regularly, and without any consistency.
But I think it misses the boat in one respect - the Pats are neither the first team, nor the only team, to get a hugely questionable verdict handed down to them from the league. If you believe that the Patriots are somehow being singled out, I humbly submit that you haven't been paying close attention (and frankly, why would you if it was happening to another team? It's human nature to know the details of your own team's struggles, and only the broadest outlines of any others...this is true of every fan base).
The current Pats' debacle is just a symptom of the NFL's long-standing disciplinary 'structure' with Goodell at the helm. There has been no transparency or consistency from the start; penalties have been levied largely in line with public perception and the level of PR hit to the NFL brand, rather than any sound underlying process.
FWIW, the NFLPA--along with nearly every NFL team (including the Pats)--ceded this level of authority to Goodell during the last round of the CBA talks. Pittsburgh was the only team that voted against the ratification (they were outvoted 31-1). I certainly don't think that the Steelers were somehow more prescient or wise than other teams...it just so happened that in that era, Pittsburgh was more aware, as it was taking the brunt of Goodell's wayward rulings. I'm sure that for other fan bases (including here on this board...it's just the way these things go), those rulings were celebrated as measured justice, rather than the wayward, which-way-does-the-wind-blow approach that actually served as their underpinnings.
Here's what Ryan Clark had to say about that agreement in
2011...sound familiar?
"How often did you hear (former commissioner) Paul Tagliabue's name throughout the season?" Clark said. "I think (Goodell has) decided to make himself a major part of this game. I don't know if he had some type of high school dreams or Pop Warner dreams of being an NFL football player, but he's made himself the NFL. He is the most popular -- or infamous -- commissioner in sports right now, you know? Maybe that's what he wanted to be. We know he doesn't work for us, he doesn't work with us."
"We feel like someone else should be on there; there should be some ... type of way -- actually someone who's not on the NFL payroll," Clark said. "A big issue, for us, especially, as a team, is Roger Goodell ... being judge, jury and appeals system."