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Don't Root for Injuries, Embarrassing Depositions Are Much More Fun

The most entertaining part of the football season is not only outside the lines, it's outside the stadiums. Jerry Jones and the NFL are on the outs. Dire threats are being issued by both sides, threats that will almost certainly never materialize, but oh, boy how all right thinking sports fans wish they would.

The Cowboys owner has said he'll sue the league if his fellow owners give commissioner Roger Goodell a contract extension. Through the league, the other 31 owners have said they'll retaliate with stern if somewhat vague sanctions against Jones, even though they agree with him about Goodell, who has been the very worst type of leader known to political science -- a weak tyrant.

A burst of Jones v. NFL litigation in state and federal courthouses across the land would provide the first real spark of suspense and fun in what's been a pretty dismal pro football season to date, marked only by the weekly devastating injury to one or more of the league's increasingly few celebrity superstars. (Are there any folks out there who think that barring a similar injury to Tom Brady, the Patriots won't be the AFC team in the Super Bowl? I know a fair of number of Steelers' fans, and they don't even think so.).

Indeed, legal trench warfare might help the NFL with its increasingly troubling decline in TV ratings. Just get the various judges in a Jones-Goodell tussle to schedule all hearings, motions, etc. for Thursday nights, replacing the loathed Thursday night games. Trust me, high priced attorneys arguing over impenetrable statues of commercial law can be tremendous entertainment.

The Sullivan family's legal travails in the late '80s were way more absorbing than the Pats' actual play in that time. As Mark Blaudschun, then of the Globe, said, "the only day you can turn your back on this team is Sunday!"

As a capper, I propose that in such proceedings, the lawyers for both sides be required to wear Color Rush three-piece suits. Move over, "Big Bang Theory." There's a new ratings champ in town!

Fantasies are great, but my vision of NFL civil war is just a daydream. Twenty five years of covering the league lets me know better.  It is beyond unlikely that Jones, Goodell and the 31 other NFL owners will devolve into one of the weirder McMahon family WWE plot lines. That would require each side to but pride above the profit motive. That WOULD be a violation of NFL ownership's Prime Directive.

All NFL owners are billionaires. Nobody gets a billion bucks without enormous drive, enormous greed and/or enormous inheritance. Just because the other owners are quieter than Jones doesn't mean that at bottom they're not just like him. The 32 owners are often referred to as a club. This is a poor metaphor. A better one would be the analogy that's increasingly appropriate too all the top levels of sports, pro and amateur: organized crime.

In the league's case, the OC in question is the Mob in its 1930-1960 heyday, It is a partnership of 32 men not used to having partners, each in control of a territory (franchise) where they are despots, but forced to cooperate to keep all 32 territories cranking out money at the pace to which they've become accustomed.

In this metaphor, Pete Rozelle was the Lucky Luciano, the business genius who showed his prideful board of directors that getting along was far more profitable than fighting. Few if any of today's owners are old enough to remember, but had the NFL-AFL war not ended, more than one franchise in both leagues would've gone belly up.

Few mobsters were as bright as Lucky, of course, so in the Goodell era, the commissioner has become that staple of good mob movies, the front man. He's the fans' whipping boy, the players' object of hatred, and most of all, has to take the blame when a boss, excuse me owner, steps out of line and must be disciplined for the common good. The majority of capos support Goodell not because he's any good at leadership, but because somebody's got to be front man and it might as well be him.

Another common feature of good mob movies and the actual history of organized crime is the star gangster who makes waves through his aggressive tactics. That'd be Jerry, natch. He is tolerated by his fellow owners, even grudgingly respected, because to not coin a phrase, he has always made money for his partners.

Lawsuits make money for nobody but lawyers. Jones and his fellow owners know that perfectly well, which is why I don't believe their mutual threats for one second. The most probable outcome of their squabble is that it'll be resolved more or less amicably at a mob peace conference, I mean owners' meeting. In this case, I recommend a pool party, a refreshing soothing mutual dip in the Scrooge McDuck money swimming pool in the basement of NFL headquarters at 345 Park Ave. They do have one, don't they?

Were I Goodell, I'd be eagerly ordering the snacks and drinks for such a powwow. Rozelle drove NFL profits. Goodell is merely a symbol of a profitable status quo. He's easier to keep than to remove, for now. But this veteran fan of mob movies can't help remembering he's seen a lot of front men get rubbed out in the next-to-last reel.

posted by Michael Gee @ 9:31 AM