On Monday, Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder announced that the NFL would be taking over oversight of an investigation into his organization’s workplace culture, following a Washington Post report on allegations of years of sexual harassment.
Snyder had already hired an independent investigator to look into the allegations, and in his statement, Snyder suggested that it was on his recommendation that the league take over overseeing that investigator.
“In conversations with Commissioner Goodell,” Snyder said, “[Snyder’s wife] Tanya and I suggested that the NFL assume full oversight of the investigation so that the results are thorough, complete and trusted by the fans, the players, our employees and the public.”
On the surface, this seems like a decent enough thing. Snyder knows if the report seems to be coming from his team, people might not trust it, so he’s handed off oversight to the league office to make sure things are conducted properly.
But there’s a lot that makes me nervous about the NFL taking over an investigation like this.
The NFL’s national office has two main roles:
- The league office is meant to ensure fair play for the sport by setting rules that all teams must abide by.
- The Commissioner works on behalf of the individual franchise owners to collectively negotiate business opportunities on behalf of the entire league.
Most investigations the league conducts are in that first role — they investigate accusations that teams or players have gained an unfair advantage in the league. While we may not like their tactics or decisions with regard to Spygate or Bountygate or Deflategate or Fake Crowd Noise Gate or whatever, these seem like the proper things for the NFL to investigate.
Put it another way: All but the most diehard of Patriots fans agreed it was ridiculous when actual judges and courtrooms got involved with Deflategate. This was a league matter, and should have been investigated by the league.
What has gotten Roger Goodell in trouble is when he tries to expand his investigating powers beyond the sport of football. This is a man who so badly bungled an investigation into Ray Rice’s assault of a woman he was forced to apologize and re-open the investigation.
Goodell was not equipped to investigate an assault case, nor should he have been, because he’s a pro football commissioner.
So why can’t the NFL seem to learn anything? Why is the league now overseeing an investigation into accusations of a years-long, systemic culture of harassment at one of its teams?
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The hope here is that the independent investigation resumes, no one from the league office has any involvement until the final report comes in, and then the league acts swiftly off the recommendations of that independent voice.
But this all screams optics to me. I’m not sure what difference it makes if the final report goes to Roger Goodell or the Washington Football Team or anybody involved in the NFL. It’s all the same company. It’s still an internal investigation. The league can still control the messaging, can still make the internal decision to do whatever it wants with what the report finds.
That doesn’t inspire confidence in me. If the NFL had a better track record investigating its own, and had shown more competence when it comes to handling issues outside the sport of football, I’d be more willing to give the league the benefit of the doubt.
But it hasn’t. If I was Roger Goodell, I would do what Snyder should have done and immediately relinquish control of the investigation to independent oversight, outside of the league.
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