Roger Goodell is trying to reshape his legacy. Will NFL owners allow him to succeed?

Goodell can prioritize diversity in the coaching and executive ranks. He can adjust his player discipline philosophies from a punitive to a rehabilitative approach. He can hire women in influential roles, and he can upload a video response to players in which he admits wrong and commits to finally support their desires to protest racial inequality. But he can’t keep his bosses from standing as unaccountable menaces to societal change, not unless he’s willing to play the game with more force and coldblooded conviction.

Beyond the onerous task of guiding the NFL through the novel coronavirus pandemic, Goodell is dealing with the reality that his offseason of earnest intentions has encountered significant opposition in the form of scandals involving two of the owners he serves. In Washington, Daniel Snyder has an organizational culture of sexual harassment and verbal abuse to try to fix, and he is gifted only at breaking stuff. In addition, there is the trouble Woody Johnson is facing. Johnson, the New York Jets owner who hasn’t run the team day-to-day since becoming the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2017, is under State Department investigation, having been accused of using his position to benefit the personal interests of President Trump. Attached to those allegations are claims that he made sexist and racist comments to staff.

Johnson has denied any wrongdoing. Although Snyder has been criticized for creating a toxic environment, he hasn’t been connected explicitly to any of Washington’s misconduct. The NFL, of course, is doing its boilerplate monitoring of both situations.

While accountability exists for players and other league personnel, owners skate. When they get into trouble, they make it clear they own everything — except responsibility.

Look at Robert Kraft. If Jerry Richardson hadn’t preemptively sold the Carolina Panthers to save face, he might still own the club. Bob McNair, the late Houston Texans owner, launched a distasteful defense of Richardson two years ago against revelations of sexual harassment and racism — some of which resulted in financial settlements — by saying, “Sometimes things get misunderstood.”

Owners run the league, and on too many occasions, they run wild.

The NFL shield Goodell speaks of protecting looks awfully flimsy and unremarkable in this light. The commissioner is made to look foolish for selling principles that the real men in charge do not value.

Goodell: “We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”

His bosses: If you say so, Rog.

The image-conscious NFL has a long history of making promises it doesn’t intend to keep. But it feels like the league is at odds with itself more than it has ever been. That’s because Goodell, who has worked in the NFL for 38 years and served as its commissioner for nearly 14, is pushing it, at least in perception, in a direction that doesn’t mesh with the pompous and dismissive manner in which many owners run their toy franchises. It presents a fascinating question: How far is Goodell willing to go?

Given his track record and his $40 million-a-year responsibility to the owners, the most optimistic expectation is that Goodell will stand down, shrug and attempt to convince you subtly that he tried his best. You’ve seen that kind of whitewashing in the updated portrayal of Goodell as not an enabler of Colin Kaepernick’s banishment but as a man who attempted more unifying leadership before exhausting all of his power. On the issue of diversity in hiring practices, the league has drawn an implied line separating its office from the interests of eccentric owners running their autonomous franchises.

Of course, Goodell possesses limited powers. But after an epic 2017 fight with a petty Jerry Jones to renew his contract through 2023, what does Goodell have to lose? This is likely his final deal. An opportunity to revise his legacy is at stake. This is his last chance to influence positive change beyond enhanced revenue and labor peace.

Near the end, he must choose between self-preservation and shaking up things for the better. He must choose, once and for all, between running the entire league and serving the owners.

We like to consider the commissioner’s job a rather easy — and easily replaceable — gig. It’s the NFL, right? You can do a lot wrong, as Goodell has shown, and still win big. The job is actually much more difficult than that and in this moment, a competent commissioner is essential because there are so many complicated decisions to balance: health and safety, money, short-term contingencies, long-term planning, and for the NFL, a new television contract to start negotiating soon, which may define how quickly the sport recovers.

It all makes Goodell and the stability he provides critical to the game’s future. In such a position, he can win some one-off battles on other issues while leading the NFL through what represents the closest thing to an existential crisis America’s favorite sport will ever experience. And as a last-term commissioner, Goodell will be gone before any owners can retaliate for scrutinizing them too harshly or overstepping in forcing accountability from them.

If Goodell truly aspires to reshape his legacy, he must push his bosses in an uncomfortable and unprecedented way. Otherwise, he will be remembered as just another commissioner who preferred half measures and public pacification over lasting impact.

During better times, it has been easier for people to live with hypocrisy and suspend their morals just to watch football. But 2020 has made it almost impossible to reconcile values and trivial joy.

Part of Goodell’s job is to connect mission to profit and see those opportunities faster than anyone. So this goes beyond a pure legacy play. A piece of NFL viability lies in how well it adapts in this moment. Excusing racism and sexism won’t cut it.

NFL owners must make a decision, too. Change willingly at the recommendation of a commissioner who has spent four decades trying to understand them. Or change reluctantly by the force of people who are growing more intolerant of their intolerance by the day.

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