Roger Goodell, who has made cracking down on player misconduct one of the top priorities of his tenure as NFL commissioner, says arrests this offseason have convinced him that more needs to be done.
“We are going to do some things to combat this problem because some of the numbers on DUIs and domestic violence are going up and that disturbs me,” Goodell told Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com. “When there’s a pattern of mistakes, something has got to change.”
Goodell said he has talked to the NFL Players Association about the matter and is hoping to continue working with the players to reduce the number of off-field incidents that cast the NFL in a negative light.
“We’ve had some really good discussions with the union,” Goodell said. “Now we just have to see if we can carry through with them.”
Issues with players getting arrested typically disappear during training camp, because players are so busy and exhausted during training camp that they don’t have the time or the energy to find trouble off the field. But that doesn’t mean the NFL isn’t facing a serious problem with all of the arrests that happened this offseason -- 32 of them, by our count. Goodell is right to be disturbed.