August 27, 2026
The biggest laugh I had in the past week came not on a TV show or movie, but while watching the network news.
I know, I know. Who watches the network news these days? Guilty as charged. I’m the one. So sue me. I’m old.
The guffaw came at the end of an NBC report on 49ers owner Jed York’s arrest and no-contest plea for getting caught booking the services of a $140 trailer-park hooker. York spent a night in jail last week and was fined $1,150 for the transgression, a pittance for a third-generation gene-pool winner worth an estimated half a billion dollars.
With a straight face, Maggie Vespa reported on Aug. 24 that a statement by the league after the arrest made clear that NFL owners “have traditionally been held to a higher standard.”
Ha, ha, ha. Higher standard than what? And by whom?
Vespa made it abundantly clear that the NFL was claiming that the owners are more demanding of themselves to act appropriately than the players, fans and anyone else associated with their sport.
Yeah, if there’s one thing Roger Goodell has established in his 20 years as commissioner, it’s his relentless scrutiny of the men who hired him, a group of entitled, spoiled billionaires who surround themselves with sycophants.
Just kidding. Goodell has been a protector and apologist for the owners like no other commissioner in sports history. There are two reasons he has lasted this long as the main man of the NFL. First, he has made tons of money for these rich jackals. And second, he has often looked the other way when an owner got caught doing something stupid or evil.
Need I bring up a subject that still rankles Eagles fan and always will? After the Patriots and their crooked coach Bill Belichick got caught spying on opponents’ practices, Goodell ordered the videotapes that proved the breach of rules destroyed in 2007. (To this day, many fans here believe the Patriots stole that Super Bowl against the Birds in 2005.)
The last thing the NFL needed back then was any backlash against the greatest coach and quarterback ever. It was bad for the brand. As for owner Robert Kraft, well, let’s just say he was more important to the league than Eagles owner Jeff Lurie.
Kraft was an even bigger personal beneficiary of Goodell’s largess in 2019 when the owner was caught on tape receiving more than the law allows during two visits to a tacky Florida massage parlor. By all measures, this is precisely the kind of conduct for which there is zero tolerance in the NFL.
Just kidding again. Goodell didn’t offer any punishment at all after Kraft got off (pun intended) on a technicality before his trial for two counts of soliciting prostitution.
In other words, Kraft got an extra happy ending, free of charge.
Then there was the case of late Colts owner Jim Irsay, whose DWI in 2014 – which included serious drug charges – got him a 6-game suspension and a $500,000 fine. Irsay was worth $7 billion when he passed away last year of a drug overdose. He paid the fine back then from his petty-cash drawer.
Goodell’s chummy relationship with Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was one of the reasons the commissioner caved to his buddy’s pressure and gave running back Ray Rice a pitiful two-game suspension in 2014 after domestic-abuse charges. Two games? Seriously?
When a video of the elevator assault surfaced, Goodell bailed on his promise to Bisciotti for leniency and essentially ended Rice’s career.
One thing is certain: Goodell was not holding the owners or their teams to a higher standard. The standard was entirely dependent on how the public reacted. Once the video came out, the public forced the league to do the right thing.
Finally, there’s the nauseating case of Daniel Snyder, the former owner of the Washington franchise, a scurrilous weasel in an owners’ room filled with ruthless money-grubbers. The worst sports owner of our lifetimes is Daniel Snyder.
Of course, everyone knew this fact within the first couple of years after he took over the then-Redskins in 1999. He built a toxic work environment amid allegations of sexual harassment and profound incompetence. Snyder was bad for the NFL brand all 24 years he owned the Redskins/Commanders.
And yet, Goodell stood firmly behind the creep when the commissioner landed in front of Congress in 2022 after allegations that he had refused to reveal the results of an NFL investigation into Snyder’s behavior, leading to a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia charging the league with a coverup.
In the end, the findings leaked out anyway, and Snyder was forced to sell the team three years ago. He bought the Washington franchise for $800 million and sold it for $6 billion.
That was some punishment, wasn’t it?
The bottom line is, in my recollection the NFL has not once held the billionaire owners accountable for their actions, or at least not until a video surfaces or the public clamors for justice.
Jed York has nothing to worry about. Oh, Goodell will give him a meaningless fine and maybe even a token suspension, but York can take comfort in the fact that Goodell was, is and will always be a lapdog for the billionaires who have made him extremely rich in his own right.
It doesn’t bother me that the NFL is lying to protect its brand. No, what bothers me is that anyone believes this poppycock.
Shame on NBC for buying into the bunk last week.
And shame on the rest of the media who are afraid to take on the big, bad NFL.
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If you’re looking for evidence that the Eagles organization thinks you’re dumb, you need look no further than the comical announcement yesterday that the team has selected as the latest inductee into its Hall of Fame . . . . owner Jeff Lurie.
Yes, after careful consideration, the Eagles voted to kiss the boss’s ass. Wow. Such boldness. Such out-of-the-box thinking. Such shameless self-glorification.
Look, I’m not saying Lurie shouldn’t be honored for his 32 years of first-rate ownership of our most important sports franchise. Hey, whatever floats your yacht.
The problem is that Lurie issued a statement – he’s still speaking publicly only once or twice a year – that pretended this was something far more than it actually is.
He is the owner of the team.
In effect, he’s celebrating himself here, no?
“Being selected to the Eagles Hall of Fame is one of the greatest honors of my life,” he said. “From the very moment I became owner, I have been deeply committed to delivering a champion. . . “
I’ll spare you the rest of Lurie’s usual bloviating about how great he is. We have all heard it too many times before. Normally, legends allow others to honor them. Lurie is honoring himself and pretending it was somebody else. That’s basically what happened here.
OK, technically induction into the Eagles Hall of Fame is governed by a selection committee, but you have to be pretty slow of mind not to see that the race was rigged from the start. Among those on the committee are Ron Jaworski, who played for Lurie in the owner’s early years. The rest of the names are private.
Of course they are. But it’s a safe guess that they all have connections to the team and the owner – strong connections that are only stronger now that they have honored the boss.
But you figured all of this out already, didn’t you?