Goodell comes off as pretty good in the report. The report savages the Saints and the players, except for Fujita, whom it exonerates.
Much as we hate Goodell for Spygate, I really actually don't have a quarrel with him here after reading the report. Freaking Vilma offered a bounty on quarterback. He can say whatever he wants, but the report cuts him to pieces. Tagliabue's view is that this doesn't warrant the suspension he received, because the coaches and team had created the environment and there's not enough precedent for suspensions, because the hits themselves are not suspendable.
I disagree. We all watched what happened when a guy deliberately goes for your QB's knee -- it puts a guy like Brady out for a year. I understand the league didn't have the stomach for litigation. I wish they had. A player who offers $10k to his teammates to put a QB on a stretcher should be suspended in my view. Call me crazy, but that's how I see it. Yes, the punishments were unprecedented, but you have to start somewhere.
I guess Tagliabue realized these guys have already missed lots of games, so it's time to close the book. I can live with that, I suppose. But hearing Vilma go on tv and claim he's been "exonerated" is really going to **** me off. If there were a genuine dispute whether he really did it, I would feel differently, but Tagliabue cuts him to the core. He's a scumbag as far as I'm concerned and deserves everything he got.