The four-page letter sent by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee to Commissioner Roger Goodell reflects a thorough understanding of the issues raised by the workplace investigation of the Washington Football Team and the manner in which the league handled it. Among other things, the Committee understands that NFL general counsel Jeff Pash has a clear incentive to conceal evidence, given the contents of some of his emails to and from former Washington executive Bruce Allen.
The letter asks the NFL to, among other things, “describe in detail Mr. Pash’s role in the investigations described in this letter, if any.”
It’s fair to wonder whether and to what extent Pash directed the investigation toward something other than full transparency, in order to hide his own communications with Allen. As PFT recently reported, the two men exchanged more than 1,000 emails over a decade. The NFL has downplayed the exchanges by pointing out that this translates to an average of two per week.
Fine. Then release them. Let’s see what they discussed twice per week, for 52 weeks. For 10 years.
And let’s see what Pash did, or didn’t do, to nudge the league toward opting for secrecy in this case, given that the NFL seems to have a full commitment to transparency when trying to show that players engaged in misconduct.
The whole thing continues to stink. The more the NFL resists transparency, the stronger the smell becomes.