Kia Roberts, a rare voice of reason and caution in the NFL’s Ezekiel Elliott investigation, has left the league office, according to Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Roberts served as lead investigator in the Elliott case. She ultimately recommended that Elliott not be suspended.
Hill reports that Roberts left for reasons unrelated to the Elliott case. It’s somewhat surprising that Roberts stayed for as long as she did, given the evidence and testimony suggesting that someone may have tried to conceal the opinions of Roberts -- who interviewed Elliott’s accusers on multiple occasions -- from Commissioner Roger Goodell. For example, her opinion did not appear in the final internal report.
Roberts’ position fueled the initial success that Elliott enjoyed in court. He lost the case based not on merit, but based on legal technicalities regarding the NFL’s immense power to discipline players under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Meanwhile, NFL senior V.P. of investigations Lisa Friel, whose credibility was called into question by one of the federal court rulings issued in the case, continues to be employed by the league, even though her work in both the Josh Brown case and the Elliott case raises real questions about her fitness for the job.
Then again, maybe she’s simply doing her job perfectly. The league’s effort to investigate and discipline players for off-field misconduct seems to be less about justice and more about P.R. Friel’s job could be, and perhaps is, to bridge the gap between facts and law on one hand and the outcome the league wants on the other -- and to take the heat when things get periodically messy, so that others working at 345 Park Avenue will never face the blowback that comes from the perception/reality that the league was too soft on a player who possibly, maybe, might have committed a crime.