Roger Goodell’s handling of Deflategate was praised by an unlikely subject in Mark Cuban.
Cuban told reporters before Wednesday’s game in Boston that he thought Goodell handled the scandal “masterfully.”
“As an owner, it was obvious to me that it was up to Roger Goodell to take the heat and take responsibility,” Cuban told reporters on Wednesday, via MassLive’s Kevin Duffy. “And he handled in masterfully. The fact that it all got reversed and all that is irrelevant. The NFL always loses their court cases the first time. Always. And then they end up winning when it doesn’t matter, but you can’t — I don’t know if Brady lied or not, who knows, with the whole phone thing and everything — but the reality is it’s all about the good of the game and that’s what Roger’s responsible for and that’s what the owners pay him so much money to do. And he’s going to do to the best of his ability what he thinks he can, and I think that’s what he did.
“It’s not about Brady, it’s not about anything else. It’s, ‘How do you manage the golden goose?’ That’s what he’s trying to do. I give him credit for taking all of the bullets.”
It’s an interesting perspective and a typically business-minded response from Cuban. Goodell’s job is to act in the interests of the owners, and he definitely took the bullets for them.
