I’m an NFL football fan. But I don’t have to be, and at this moment I’m not sure I want to be due to Roger Goodell’s handling of Adrian Peterson. If you read my post on the recent announcement of Apple’s CEO then you’ll know I don’t like to support companies who have leaders who do pretty major things that make me sad. Whether they make me sad by being unfair to those under their power or by being blatantly dishonest about important matters – either way they’ve broken a trust. It’s my money and my time, so why use it to support something that makes me sad?

Roger Goodell has managed to do something nobody else has been able to do. Something I never thought was even possible. Something that the party that leans more to the left hasn’t been able to do in my 35+ years. Something my college professors couldn’t do. Something my wife’s dad who was vice president in the fire fighter union couldn’t do. Goodell’s actions have convinced me of something probably every conservative would agree is a terrible idea, which is funny because I’m pretty sure that Goodell walks on the conservative side of the political line. In any case, his decisions and actions have managed to convince me of something conservatives have fought hard to discredit. He’s convinced me that unions are still important and necessary.

Now, to be honest, all this has done it upgrade unions in my mind from “completely unnecessary and counterproductive” to a slightly more elevated state of “needed and a necessary evil“, but I honestly never thought I’d see the day that such a thought would even enter my mind. What Goodell has done to Adrian Peterson is reprehensible and inexcusable. The arbitrary punishments doled out in the face of pressure from some fans and some advertisers are understandable, but still show signs of weakness on the commissioners part. I’ve yet to see him make a proactive move in any of his dealings, and his reactive ones have only come after he’s been forced into a corner. Now he’s managed to back someone else into a corner, and even though I didn’t think I’d ever say it, I’m glad there’s a union there to back up his victim. As USA Today’s Nancy Armour put it Goodell hasn’t done anything here other than try to protect what he considers to be his turf and ended up just picking a fight with the union.

If the union really wanted to impress they’d convince players to hold out on the Thanksgiving day games coming up next week. Hell, I bet the union has enough in the coffers to write a game check to every player for that missed week. That would be glorious! I could live
with it and it would probably further strengthen my new found slightly positive opinion toward unions. Of course, they might not have to. The union might win it’s grievance hearing and Peterson will be allowed to play sooner than next year. Maybe that’s Goodell’s plan anyway. This way he can act like he tried to get rid of Peterson but the arbitrator was convinced by the big, mean union and forced his hand to let
Peterson play again this year. Maybe that’s the plan. But it shouldn’t have come to that and it frustrates me that, if that is his plan, he simply proved that unions are necessary in order to protect individuals from weak leaders.

Roger Goodell has made me sad today, but maybe I should thank him (and the other owners for continuing to support him) for opening my eyes to the truth. As long as there are leaders like Goodell, there will be a need for organized protection of workers rights. I’d still rather just get rid of the bad leaders, but even if that were the plan there would need to be some mechanism for raising awareness about bad leaders when they slip through the cracks, and I’m not sure I can think of another more functional mechanism for that very task than a union…

I guess unions are probably a little bit like firearms. They can be used wrong and can cause all kinds of damage if whoever is controlling them doesn’t make good decisions and doesn’t pay close attention to where they’re pointing their power. It’s best to not wield the power at all if possible. But in the end, it’s probably better to have one and not need it than it is to need one and not have one.