Goodell gets job done

Something extraordinary happened in the sports world last week. A professional sports league delivered severe penalties to two players and exactly nobody disagreed.

Not the players. Not the players union. Not coaches, owners, media.

Not even Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

After seeing nearly 50 arrests of NFL players last year, ranging from DUIs to drugs to guns and animal abuse, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Titans cornerback Pacman Jones for an entire season and Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for a half-season for their repeated brushes with the law.

That was extraordinary enough, but the reaction was something else.

Everyone applauded. There wasn't a naysayer out there, unless you count Jones' mother, who called it unfair. She found no sympathy.

Everyone is fed up with millionaire athletes who live extraordinary lives of privilege and behave like outlaws.

There's a new sheriff in town, and he means business. Goodell didn't just talk about the problem (for talk, we have Bud Selig); he acted.

Goodell could have invoked the standard line of reasoning that some sports follow — that because the NFL is wildly popular, because TV and attendance numbers are off the charts, nothing needs to be fixed (please see the NBA and MLB).

Goodell could have reasoned that because he instituted a new policy after Jones and Henry broke the laws, they would get a clean slate.

He could have hidden behind another standard response about waiting until the players had their days in court.

But he didn't. He made a statement: Playing in the NFL is a privilege, not a constitutional right. Goodell socked Jones and Henry and hit them hard. Jones will lose $1.3 million in salary, Henry $218,000. Nor are they guaranteed a return to the league. They must first meet with Goodell again and convince him they are changed men.

Goodell's punishments probably won't end there. He is likely to turn his attention soon to two other troublemakers — Joey Porter, who, according to his victim, ganged up in a cowardly ambush assault of another NFL player at a Las Vegas casino at his mother's 50th birthday party celebration, and the Bears' Tank Johnson, who is serving time in jail at the moment.