A couple of Patriot-centric items emerged from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's sitdown with the New York Daily News' Gary Myers earlier this week on WFAN radio's "Chalk Talk" segment.
There wasn't exactly a lot of "chalk talk" in the lengthy Q&A. Myers skipped X's and O's and right away waded into the NFL's handling of the Josh Brown domestic violence case and questioned Goodell's one-game suspension of Brown - when NFL policy mandates a six-game suspension for domestic violence - vs. Tom Brady's four-game Deflategate ban.
The commissioner reiterated his "integrity of the game" and "independent investigation" defenses of the Brady penalty and the Delflategate discussion ended (at about 28 minutes into the YouTube video) with Myers asking: "At what point do you think you'll go to a game in Foxboro again?"
A perturbed Goodell responds: "I have no...I don’t know, Gary. I’ll go wherever I need to go.”
Goodell famously skipped the September 2015 NFL kickoff in Foxboro when Brady, who played when his ban was initially overturned in court, and the Patriots watched their Super Bowl 49 title banner raised before facing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Fans serenaded the missing commissioner with a "Where is Roger?" chant.
As for comparing the suspensions of the since-released New York Giants kicker with the Patriots quarterback, Goodell said:
“Gary, I think you better look at the facts. We have to justify any action we take, and you better understand the facts and the evidence that exist. So you’re conflating a few issues there. I would tell you that I think our investigators have a very good understanding of the information. They didn’t have access to information [in the Brown case] - but neither did you - that they’re looking at, and I think I will allow our investigators to get to the bottom of it, and we’ll see. They made the best decision at the time on the evidence that they had, but it has to be supported. As you know, the union challenged the one-game suspension. So we have to be able to support whatever position we take.”
New England Patriots
For more on the NFL's bungled Brown investigation and the league's lack of transparency, read CSN Patriots Insider Tom E. Curran's take here.
And on the NFL's handling of domestic violence cases in general, Goodell said, "I think we've made tremendous progress. Can we make more and will we make more? Of course."