Florio: Some Say "Trained Monkey" Can Do Goodell's Job
Is the NFL's governing body rotten?
Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio joined WQAM to discuss the NFL's habitual inability of handling scandal and questions whether the league is better off with a different power structure in place, one without NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
"The NFL has more and more of these scandals where the ultimate conclusion is the NFL doesn't know how to properly investigate these things and how to do it in a way that inspires confidence among the public," Florio said on The Joe Rose Show. "You do have this perceived or actual conflict of interest because the commissioner who is presiding over the sport is bought and paid for by the owners. Sooner or later someone is going to suggest and/or act upon having an independent oversight body that governs the sport -- fully independent, government appointed.
That's the last thing the NFL wants but I'll tell you what, if they keep screwing up every investigation that lands in their laps, sooner or later there's gonna be John McCain or somebody else and it's gonna be oh doesn't congress have better things to do, but look, the NFL is part of our national fabric and if there's a fundamental inability to take care of their problems, somebody else needs to take care of their problems."
After a year of scandals involving Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and most recently Deflate-Gate with the Patriots, Rose asked Florio to assess Goodell's job performance as commissioner.
"Some people say a trained monkey can do the job," Florio said. "That they could be paying a lot less than $44 million to a commissioner because how hard is it when the sport sells itself? How hard is it to be the commissioner of the National Football League?"
Florio wonders if "perhaps it is time for somebody who is disconnected and independent of ownership to be running professional football."
Listen to all sports interviews here, and follow WQAM on Twitter | Facebook
