Roger Goodell, Where Are You?

Remember those people who were afraid of the National Football League becoming soft after they implemented the no helmet to helmet contact rule?


Surely those people have gotten more contact than they have asked for in the past few weeks and with the amount of fights and childish acts that have taken place in games recently. We went from Richard Seymour punching Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, to Shaun Hill accusing the New England Patriots defense of trying to re-fracture his arm while he was on the bottom of a pile in Thursday's Thanksgiving game, lastly and maybe the worst  of them all was the debactle that took place in Houston over the weekend. The good old fashion hockey fight between Texans receiver Andre Johnson and Titans corner back Cortland Finnegan. These three examples have sent a negative shock-wave through the NFL front office and commissioners desk. There response? A 25,000 dollar fine, are you kidding me?

First of all commissioner Roger Goodell has earned a hard ass reputation around the league due to his enforcement of rules, the handing out of suspensions and the fining of players like hes giving away candy on Halloween all because he is worried about the leagues image off the field. This guy creates a rule to prevent players from players full out on the defensive side of the ball, he fines people anytime they make hard contact with a quarterback and has suspended people for things that have taken place off of the field. These past weeks he has had a golden opportunity to throw down a gauntlet about fighting in the NFL and how that type of behavior would not be tolerated on the field. Instead he handed out a small fine for Richard Seymour sucker punching Ben Roethlisberger and the same small fine for Andre Johnson and Cortland Finnegan having a UFC fight mid-play.


Now, i'm not completely naive in believing that if Goodell had suspended Seymour the Johnson-Finnegan bout would have never taken place, but at the very least they could have known that they were going to face a suspension and maybe cost there team a football game because of there suspension for the next game. Neither one of these fights were something that happens a lot in the NFL but they were things that will most likely never be forgotten. The Titans play the Texans again later this season, anyone want to take bets on whether or not these two go at it again? Maybe if that happens Goodell will start worrying about things happening on the field rather than his image off the field.