Gumbo
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- Mar 19, 2019
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More than seven years ago, the relationship between Commissioner Roger Goodell and Saints coach Sean Payton became permanently fractured by a bounty scandal that resulted in the imposition of an unwarranted one-year suspension on Payton. Ten weeks ago, Goodell and Payton dusted off their inability to see eye to eye, with Payton objecting to Goodell’s handling of the aftermath of the blown non-call that kept the Saints from advancing to the Super Bowl.
The two adversaries found a way to put any animosity behind them last week at the league meetings in Arizona, thanks to the common goal of wanting to adjust rules that contributed to the Saints losing to the Rams in the NFC Championship game.
“One club official who noticed strange bedfellows Goodell and Payton sitting together also noticed Goodell slap Payton on the leg when the vote came in,” writes Peter King of Football Morning in America. “We did it! That’s what the slap of camaraderie seemed to signify.”
Goodell became a belated proponent of expanding replay review to cover pass interference both called and not called, marking a significant break from what some believed was a reluctance to expend political capital to solve a problem that most likely wouldn’t repeat itself on his watch. Goodell apparently realized once he got to Arizona that the winds of change were blowing hard, and that a failure to act would potentially be viewed by some owners as an abdication of his duties.
In the end, Goodell showed the leadership that seemed to be absent in the days after the Rams earned a spot in the Super Bowl. However it happened, it’s good that it did.