Roger the Dodger

 There are times in life when you're compelled to say "What kind of Mickey Mouse operation are you running here?", but then you catch yourself. Because no decent human wants to be caught insulting Mickey Mouse.

This is approximately where we are with the NFL right now, an organization that has written do-overs into its own bylaws. See, Roger Goodell 'n' them agreed to an independent arbitration process to determine punishments for violating league rules, but not really. What they agreed to was, if the independent arbitrator's decision didn't sit well with the league, it could just ignore it and do whatever it wanted to do to begin with.

"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Isn't that, you know, kind of silly?"

It is. It renders the entire arbitration process performance art, is what it does. Also a waste of time. I suppose retired judge Sue L. Robinson was well paid to preside over the Deshaun Watson case, but I also suppose she must, at this point, be wondering "Why the hell am I here, again?"

Understand, her ruling in the Watson case was inconsistent and at times contradictory, and it certainly didn't seem to fit the crime. Watson, after all, was accused by 30-some women of sexual harassment/misconduct. This is hardly the same as other NFL players who've committed similar but far less serial offenses. Yet Robinson judged Watson's case based on those precedents.

Still, she did her job. She weighed the facts and adjudicated the case. But now the NFL gets to just ignore her ruling because, well, it doesn't like it?

Robinson: "I hereby rule that Deshaun Watson should sit out the league-minimum six games without pay. No additional fines will be assessed."

The NFL: "Wait, what? That's not what we wanted! We wanted a whole season PLUS fines! I call a do-over!"

And so the NFL is appealing, because Roger Goodell wants to  resurrect his rep as Roger the Hammer. First, however, he has to be Roger the Dodger.

As in "dodging the agreed-upon arbitrator's decision."

Yeesh. What a Mickey Mou-

Oops. Sorry, Mick.