Roger Goodell should just admit it: The NFL is nothing but a modern-day plantation | Opinion

I want to be clear: I love football.

I have been a University of Miami season-ticket holder for 36 years and was a Dolphins ticket holder for 20 years. I was friends with the Robbie family and I admire Stephen Ross for his investment in Hard Rock Stadium.

Then there is Roger Goodell, czar of the National Football League, a hypocritical corporate suit who blows with the wind.

This month, Goodell admitted the NFL was wrong for not listening to its players who protested police brutality by taking a knee and having silenced them. But it was an empty admission because he failed to apologize to the NFL’s biggest victim, Colin Kaepernick, whose career Goodell effectively ended.

Kaepernick’s demonstration was the most significant example of civil disobedience since Muhammad Ali called out America’s racism. A person who willingly sacrificed their personal welfare over a matter of principle is the very definition of the kind of civil disobedience that is essential to a thriving democracy. Yet instead of applauding Kaepernick, Goodell and the team owners kept their knees on his neck until they suffocated his career.

No one should be surprised at this because the NFL is the kind of insidious organization that hides its racism in plain sight. To understand this, simply look at how it has treated its players, more than 70 percent of whom are Black.

Look at how the NFL handled the concussion issue. In 1994, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue created the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee. Dr. Elliot J. Pellman was named chairman despite not having experience with brain injuries. As late as 2010, Dr. Ira Casson, one of the committee co-chairs, appeared before the Congress and denied a link between repeated head impact and long-term brain damage.

By 2012, the multibillion-dollar NFL committed all of $30 million to support medical research into this issue. Wow! Players really mattered to this group. More than 4,500 current and former players were forced to file a class-action suit, which was settled in 2015. In 2016, the NFL publicly acknowledged the connection between head injuries and football.

Another example is seen in the NFL’s financial commitment to players. While more than half a billion dollars in claims have been approved, this is not nearly enough. NFL lawyers game the system at every opportunity. In 2017, NFL owners kept a little more than $8 billion for themselves, with about $250 million per team owner, while players make, on average, roughly $3.6 million a year. Though $3.6 million might seem like a lot of money, it’s not if you are risking developing a fatal brain injury and your average career span is less than five years.

To add insult to injury, unlike the professional basketball and baseball leagues, most NFL player contracts are not fully guaranteed. The NFL argues that is because players run a higher risk of injury.

In a non-racist company, that would be the very reason to guarantee contracts. But the NFL plays its game both ways.

Finally, there is the issue of racial disparity in NFL leadership. This year, none of the five head coaching vacancies were filled by African Americans, and there are only three African American head head coaches out of 32 positions. This is the same number of black head coaches as when the Rooney rule was adopted in 2003, so no progress has been made. Zero.

Our Miami Dolphins is the only team with a Black general manager. Of course, this should not be surprising since in all of the United States, the NFL could not find one African American to own a franchise.

How does the NFL get away with this? It is a systemic issue. The players union is weak because the players have such a career life span, making a walkout risky. Unlike baseball and basketball ,where your career life span is significantly higher, if your career is less than five years, on average, risking a year to a strike is asking a lot.

Bill Parcells famously said, “You are what your record says you are.” The record of Roger Goodell and his owners says it all — they are modern-day plantation owners.

This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 5:17 PM.