Jerry Jones and Roger Goodell are fighting and no one is exactly sure what this will mean for the National Football League. The commissioner and the Dallas Cowboys owner are engaged in a feud, apparently over Goodell’s compensation negotiations, and perhaps various other things Jones isn’t happy with.
But Goodell has fired back, and there’s reportedly pressure on Jones to stop causing problems or risk losing the Cowboys franchise itself. Idle threats are not something wealthy men of this stature often employ, but the stakes are rising in this weird quarrel that doesn’t seem particularly productive for either party.
The truth of the matter is that Jones is furious with the NFL over Ezekiel Elliott’s six-game suspension, a punishment Goodell handed down shortly before the current NFL season started. Elliott’s suspension has just now taken effect, after Elliott’s legal team finally stopped appealing the ruling.
An ESPN story published on Friday makes it seem like things won’t get better between the two anytime soon. In fact, Jones threatened Goodell with “everything I have” when he got word of the suspension.
“I’m gonna come after you with everything I have,” Jones said according to ESPN. Jones is then said to have brought up Deflategate, dropping the name of the owner of the Patriots as a way to threaten the commissioner.
“If you think Bob Kraft came after you hard, Bob Kraft is a p—y compared to what I’m going to do.”
Jones was referencing the stink the New England Patriots owner put up after Tom Brady’s 4-game suspension last season. And the piece presents the battle between Goodell and Jones as one filled with uncertainty. It’s a fascinating look inside what, from the exterior, is a battle between two stoic figures. The truth, it seems, is the act on the outside is only barely hiding a weirdly emotional battle of wills between two very wealthy, powerful people. And no one really knows what will happen next.
