Thread: Dem senator: NFL commissioner should consider resigning

“I think he should consider it seriously,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) said when asked if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should step down because of the way the league handled penalizing former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice.



Dem senator: NFL commissioner should consider resigning
The Hill


Heitkamp's comments are among the strongest from lawmakers.

Dem senator: NFL commissioner should consider resigning

By Judy Kurtz

Keith Olbermann Is Right: Roger Goodell Has To Go

You won’t catch me agreeing with Keith Olbermann often, if ever again. But on the Ray Rice/Baltimore Ravens/NFL domestic abuse scandal he is absolutely right — heads have to roll. And the first to roll should...






Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) says NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should “seriously” consider resigning because of the way the league handled penalizing former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice.
“I think he should consider it seriously,” Heitkamp said when asked by ITK Tuesday if Goodell should step down.


Heitkamp's remarks are among the strongest so far from lawmakers calling for Goodell to vacate his position.Rice was dropped by the Ravens and indefinitely suspended by the NFL on Monday, after new video emerged on TMZ.com showing the star running back punching his then-fiancee in an Atlantic City, N.J., elevator. The NFL had indicated it had not viewed the footage before Monday.
An earlier video showed Rice dragging an unconscious Janay Rice, who is now married to the football player, from the elevator, but that only led to a two-game suspension for Rice.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) had called on the NFL to impose a harsher punishment against the 27-year-old running back, but on Tuesday stopped short of calling for Goodell's ouster.
“I think there need to be stronger stiffer penalties against criminal assault and domestic violence, whether it's under this leadership or a different commissioner. But what's most important is not who is in charge, but what they do,” Blumenthal told The Hill.

Goodell has come under widespread criticism over the Rice controversy, and also over how the NFL has handled a string of violent incidents involving its players.
Goodell said last month in a letter to owners that he “didn't get it right” when it came to the Rice punishment decision.
The NFL is also facing questions about how it is handling head injuries to current and former players, and to links between head trauma and violence by players.
A Tuesday post on Grantland.com titled, "What does it take to get Roger Goodell fired" blasted the commissioner's handling of domestic violence issues within the league, saying of Goodell, who's the son of the late Sen. Charles Goodell (R-N.Y.): “It may not be Goodell’s job to solve domestic violence, but it’s definitely his job to make sure that scenario doesn’t happen. At some point, shouldn’t it matter that he’s failing miserably?”

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the NFL “has to be a leader” on domestic violence. Saying he “wasn't prepared to say” Goodell should resign, Cardin said the league has “certainly learned from its mistakes. But we'll see how it moves forward in these issues.”
“It's heartbreaking,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said when asked about the situation. “I saw some statements by some of the team folks, like it's not too big a deal, and that made me sicker to my stomach in some ways than the video itself.”
— Niki Papadogiannakis contributed.


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know...#ixzz3CqVT9xwO
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook


Amazing they did nothing until the video was all over the interent and wildly viril, something like a 2 game suspension, way to go....