The nation’s long nightmare continues. Deflategate has entered into its seventh month and now a former New York Giant is jumping into the fray.
Tiki Barber has joined the growing chorus criticizing Goodell’s handling of Deflategate. Barber had not been very vocal on the manner, but he laced into Goodell over the seeming lack of independence of the independent Wells Report.
“Forget what he’s been punishing,” Barber said. “This has nothing to do with Tom Brady. It does, but it doesn’t. I want to put that aside for a second because whether you think he’s guilty [or not], it almost doesn’t matter. What happened in this case was Roger Goodell hired Ted Wells to do a report. Now we subsequently found out that NFL lawyers were working with Ted Wells to compile this report, even though it was supposed to be independent.”
Barber said the fumbling of Deflategate made him question Goodell’s ethics and honesty concerning the Ray Rice case in 2014.
“When Ray Rice had this altercation with his girlfriend in the elevator, the story then was that Roger Goodell was saying ‘I didn’t ever see the video. I had no idea that this actually happened.’ Now, because of what just came out with this Tom Brady thing and Deflategate, it now [makes me] question whether Roger Goodell was lying to save his ass then, too.”
Barber calling for Goodell to go only adds to the growing circus the whole thing has become. Studies have called into question the validity of the Wells Report, there have been SNL skits, comedians taking shots, segments on The Today Show, obituaries proclaiming Tom Brady’s innocence, and polls taken measuring Tom Brady’s likeability.
Even The Rock added his own two cents.
All this over some footballs that might or might not have been under-inflated. At least Goodell seems to be getting a laugh out of all this, though.
