Commissioner MIA

 I don't know. Few more days of this, and a police report might be in order.

"I'd like to report a missing person, officer."

"Name?"

"Roger Goodell."

"Occupation?"

"Commissioner of the NFL. Well, he was, anyway."

"Where was he when you last saw him?"

"I'm not sure. Someone claiming to be him is still around, and it does look like him, but it's not him. Used to be we called him Roger the Hammer because of the way he'd bring the pain when a player stepped out of line. But now?

"Now he's got a player who's been accused by 26 women of waving his tallywhacker at them like a conductor's baton, and who just settled with 20 of them because he didn't want to get his a** kicked in court. Meanwhile, he's got an owner who's a worse dirtbag than any player he's ever disciplined. And he hasn't lifted a finger to deal with either of them."

And so it goes, and so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say.

Roger the Hammer has morphed into some gelded imposter, and heaven knows where the real Rog has gotten to. This one dithers and frithers (not a word, but it should be) while Deshaun Watson all but admits to harassing a battalion of women, and Daniel Snyder, mouth-breathing owner of the Washington Commanders, flees overseas to avoid testifying before a congressional committee.

Which hasn't stopped the committee from issuing a damning report that fairly begs Goodell to do, well, something. In it, Snyder is accused of trying to cover his club's rampant culture of sexual harassment by smearing former GM Bruce Allen, hiring private dicks to intimidate witnesses and using a backdoor lawsuit to obtain phone records and emails.

This on top of basically pimping out the team's cheerleaders, and bullying anyone who objected by calling him "gay" -- using the word as an epithet, as if this were the 1950s or something.

The Commanders say, ah, all that happened years ago, and they've made a "positive transformation" since. Goodell has backed that play, maintaining the Commanders are shipshape on the culture thing now, and, anyway, he couldn't do anything about Snyder if he wanted to.

"I don't have the authority to remove him," Goodell told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform yesterday.

Which is true, technically, but makes it sound as if he's powerless, which he isn't. Although it would take 24 of 32 owners voting to kick Snyder out of the club, you have to think Goodell's opinion on the matter might exert some sort of influence. He may serve at the pleasure of the owners, but does that mean they never listen to him?

I suppose that's possible. Might even be probable.

But that doesn't mean Goodell shouldn't try. And it for sure doesn't mean he has to publicly defend Snyder and his whole rotten organization.

A strategic lack of comment from the commissioner would  have sufficed. And if that hung Snyder and the Commanders out to dry, so what?

It's the least they deserve.