Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
At a press conference Monday afternoon in the Oval Office, during which he announced that the 2027 NFL Draft will be held on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and touted a new stadium for the city’s Commanders, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell leaned to his left to directly address the President of the United States.
Like the rest of us, Goodell has been dealing with the problem of Donald Trump for a decade now. The president was responsible for one of the most serious crises of Goodell’s nearly 20-year reign as commissioner when Trump, during his first term, blasted the league for “allowing” players to kneel during the National Anthem and demanded that NFL owners “yank the sons of bitches off the field.” Amid declining ratings, Trump’s intervention pulled the NFL into a political minefield it wanted nothing to do with. The episode was such a disaster that Goodell called an emergency meeting with various owners, executives, and players to chart a path forward. “To me, this is like a glacier moving into the ocean,” Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula said, mixing a couple of oceanic metaphors. “We’re getting hit with a tsunami.” The waters got so tumultuous in 2020 that Goodell actually uttered the words “Black Lives Matter” during the 2020 NFL Draft. (Another perfect example of Goodell surfing the political winds to and fro; he did that at the exact moment that it benefitted him and the league and then instantly scampered away. It is impossible to imagine Goodell ever saying those words again.) When Trump left office, Goodell was mostly able to yank the NFL out of the political maelstrom and get it back to printing money with few clouds of controversy hanging over it. Regardless of the commissioner’s personal politics (he’s married to a former Fox News anchor), there is no question that his life was easier with Trump out of office.
But with Trump on top again, Goodell — like so many other executives — is kissing the ring. And it seems that at some point between Trump’s first inauguration and 2025, he’s figured out exactly how to kiss it. At the press conference, Goodell thanked Trump for bringing the NFL Draft to Washington D.C., even though Trump had absolutely nothing to do with that decision. He also thanked Trump for helping the Commanders secure their new stadium, a deal that — you guessed it — Trump also had nothing to do with. Goodell then made sure to praise him one more time.
“We wanted to also thank you,” Goodell said, seeming to smirk to himself in an acknowledgment of how absurdly obsequious he could be, “because in your first time, you helped us get a Canadian trade deal, which we want to make sure we note, again.” Goodell was referring to a small, entirely forgotten section of Trump’s 2018 renegotiated NAFTA deal that allowed the NFL to run Super Bowl ads on Canadian television. What he was really doing, of course, was giving Trump what he wants and needs more than anything in the world: Attention and praise. Trump, with that stupid rictus grin plastered on his face, said “They do not like me too much.” And then Goodell went on with his stump speech as Trump stood by, looking bored. Once all the requisite flattery was over, the whole thing felt like a ribbon-cutting at a local supermarket. It made Goodell’s past issues with Trump seem like a very long time ago.
Goodell has absorbed a fundamental lesson about Trump that his tech CEO brethren are still struggling with: If you appease him enough, you can go about your business with minimal presidential interference. (At the Super Bowl, Goodell actually defended the NFL’s commitment to DEI practices without Trump even seeming to notice.) Goodell is particularly well-suited to this task, because as commissioner, he is an employee of the 30 NFL owners, whom he must placate on a daily basis. Bending the knee? Goodell’s entire career is knowing how to bend the knee. That’s why, in spite of all the NFL scandals of the last two decades, he’s still here, stronger than ever.
When Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook stand beside Trump, you can feel the self-loathing wafting off them. Deep down, they know the president is a moron, but they feel (wrongly) like their businesses have no other choice. They are used to being in charge, and it clearly eats them up inside that they have to take a backseat to such a monumental doofus. But Goodell has made his entire career eating shit for richer, more powerful, even more out-of-touch billionaires. To get 30 of the wealthiest humans in the country — all of whom have spent their entire lives being told “yes” — to agree on anything requires a very specific set of skills: Final Boss-level knee bending. Goodell is the nation’s signature oligarch wrangler.
On Monday, the commissioner’s Trump strategy was in full effect: Praise him, thank him, give him what he wants … and then get the hell out of there. This inherent slipperiness is Goodell’s superpower. After Goodell’s remarks, Trump took questions from the assembled press horde, specifically about his “plan” to pay migrants to return to their “home” countries. As Trump blathered on — and, said, darkly, “they’re never coming back, and that’s the least of their problems” — Goodell stood to Trump’s right, with Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser (also there for the football press conference) to the president’s left. The body-language difference between the two was profound. Goodell stood there blankly, moving his head left to right, noncommittally, while Bowser, like Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer before her, looked like she was searching for a black hole to escape into.
The advantage Goodell had over Bowser is not that he inherently agreed with Trump; it’s that, unlike her, core convictions aren’t part of his job description. We expect people like Bowser, or Whitmer, or Jeff Bezos, to have thoughts on This Moment In American History. There are no such expectations of Goodell. He can nod and smile when Trump brings up The Big Lie and not suffer any price for it because everyone (Trump included) knows Goodell is what he always has been: An empty suit built for money to pass through.
The only thing that matters, Goodell has learned, is making the billionaires happy enough that you get to wake up and do it again the next day. It is how you succeed in the NFL and it turns out it’s how you succeed in Trump’s America. There may be no other person more perfectly suited to stand next to Donald Trump than Roger Goodell. I’m honestly surprised he’s not already in the cabinet.
