Roger Goodell Press Conference Results in Negative Feedback
Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, spoke for the first time in over a week about the domestic violence issues in the NFL that have made major headlines recently.
Goodell, 55, admitted that he was wrong when handling the domestic dispute that went public recently when a video surfaced of former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking his now wife unconscious went viral.
"I let myself down. I let everyone down. For that I'm sorry," Goodell admitted during a press conference in New York Friday.
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While he was questioned about his decision to first fine Rice and suspend him from a few games after he watched the incident months before it went public, Goodell defended his decision to suspend Rice indefinitely only after the video went viral.
"We suspended Ray Rice originally after seeing the original video that was disclosed in February," Goodell said during the press conference. "When the second video came out, that's when we increased our discipline because it was inconsistent with our information."
The commissioner let it be known that the NFL would partner with the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, while an independent investigation would be led by former FBI director Robert Mueller.
Despite the press conference, a number of people took to Twitter to call for the removal of the commissioner who has served in his position since 2006. The hashtag, #firegoodell was used in numerous comments.
"We need to schedule #FireGoodell day where everyone wears black and calls the NFL owners to make a change," one person wrote. "This is ridiculous."
ESPN pundits also criticized the commissioner's conference.
"It just became a mess," ESPN reporter Israel Gutierrez said of the press conference.
His comrades did not disagree after a post press conference synopsis.
Still, Goodell refused to discuss the possibilities of retiring after the domestic violence debacle along with other incidents that have gone public.
"I understand people are critical of our performance but we have a lot of work to do, that's my focus," Goodell said at the press conference. "We acknowledge that we need to change what we're doing but we have to get to what those changes are going to be."
