If an elephant is within the room, you may have two decisions: handle it or ignore it. Once you’re the NFL, you may have a 3rd one: Take away it.
In an unprecedented transfer that feels prefer it’s one thing straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook, Roger Goodell and the NFL have moved the commissioner’s annual Tremendous Bowl press convention to Monday — when press attendance is at its lowest — and made the occasion invite-only, in accordance with a report from Mike Florio.
“If you want to attend Commissioner Roger Goodell’s Super Bowl press conference, you’d better get to Las Vegas earlier. And you’d better hope for an invitation,” Florio wrote on Thursday night for NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk. “This year, the NFL is moving the Goodell press availability to Monday. For years, it was on Friday of Super Bowl week, when maximum media were in town — and they were present for the shotgun-style Q&A. Several years ago, or longer, it moved to Wednesday. Now, it’s moving to Monday. It’s also an invitation-only event. I did not get an invitation.”
When the NFL launched the schedule on Thursday, the press convention was lacking from the day’s occasions on Thursday and Friday as regular. Deadspin reached out to the league for remark. As of publication, the league has but to reply.
This leads me to consider one factor — Jim Trotter has Roger Goodell shook.
Final yr, NFL Media didn’t renew Trotter’s contract after he grilled Goodell concerning the league’s lackluster range efforts at consecutive Tremendous Bowl press conferences. However whereas Trotter is gone, the league nonetheless sucks at range, despite the recent hiring of three Black head coaches. The query was going to be if anyone was going to step up and ask about it subsequent week. That absolutely gained’t be the case now.
“Why does the NFL and its owners have such a difficult time, at the highest levels, hiring Black people into decision-making positions?” Trotter asked Goodell at the Super Bowl in 2022.
“And yet a year later, nothing has changed,” Trotter stated final yr to Goodell. “James Baldwin once said, ‘I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.”
The primary time, Goodell fumbled by way of a solution and positioned blame elsewhere. The next yr he did the identical, even with a complete yr to organize for a query about a problem that’s been round for many years.
Weeks later, Trotter was out of a job. Final September, he filed a 53-page racial discrimination/retaliation lawsuit in opposition to the NFL that reads just like the league’s playbook on methods to mistreat Black individuals. “The NFL has claimed it wants to be held accountable regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion,” stated Trotter. “I tried to do so, and it cost me my job. I’m filing this lawsuit because I can’t complain about things that are wrong if I’m unwilling to fight for what is right.”
The lawsuit additionally alleges that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones once said, “If Blacks feel some kind of way, they should buy their own team, and hire who they want to hire.” It additionally claims that Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula said, “If the Black players don’t like it here, they should go back to Africa and see how bad it is,” about participant protests in opposition to racial injustices. Jones and Pegula denied it in the identical manner that Goodell and NFL Media have denied that Trotter’s questions are why he wasn’t retained.
Nobody ever admits to racism, keep in mind that. And when the individuals who would most likely ask about it greater than possible haven’t been invited to the open discussion board, we’re left with just one possible purpose — worry of accountability.
As of now, the league is making an attempt to get Trotter’s lawsuit dismissed. They hired Loretta Lynch — the primary Black lady to function U.S. Lawyer Common — to defend them. The NFL additionally employed for Brian Flores’ case that’s headed to court docket quickly. When rich white individuals are accused of doing one thing racial, sometimes they get a Black person to defend them/be on the opposite facet. It’s why we all know who Chris Darden is.
The NFL managed to get the elephant out of the room, however the mess hasn’t been eliminated, it’s solely gotten messier. Now we have now to attend and see if anyone — who the league needed there — will ask Roger Goodell what went into this choice and why. Don’t be shocked if reporters don’t contact the topic, particularly because the majority of the media within the room might be individuals who aren’t “diverse.” Which, ultimately, is all Jim Trotter was asking about.
