Who is Jim McNally and why is it so hard to figure out? Ok, nominally we know — he is a part time locker room attendant at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA. It is important to emphasize that we know he is part time, based on a number of undisputed facts in the Wells report covering the deflategate controversy. Also undisputed is that he is at least friendly, if not actual friends, with John Jastremski, a full-time employee of the New England Patriots who is responsible for breaking in footballs to standards acceptable to Patriot quarterback Tom Brady.
I will admit that certain parts of the Wells report I previously had only skimmed over, in regard to McNally, because much of it sounded like scattershot innuendo — just throw a bunch of vague insinuations at the wall and see what sticks. However, as I read through the appeals transcript I find that the question of his relationship with Tom Brady is central to the league’s decision to punish Brady. I still can’t figure out (1) why it is so hard to determine this and (2) why the journalism community isn’t trying to help sort it out.
On point 2, I realize that the poor guy (I say “poor guy” because I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he is just some low-level helper, and now is under a bunch of pressure from various sides, although I don’t know for sure that he might be a self-important team groupie — there are vague hints that he is) should not have his private life torn asunder, but is that even really necessary to at least get a handle on this? One thing I learned by studying the documents is that there are two different scenes in an NFL stadium, game day and non-game day, and the level of chaos, focus of attention, and relationships between the various members of the organization, is quite different in those two situations. It stands to reason, it’s just that I never really thought about it before. It sounds much like the relationship between a regular standing army and the citizen militia, the former being the ones always trained and ready full time, and the latter brought in when the battles begin.
Is it typical or is it unusual that star players might be close to everyone in the organization, top to bottom, when they are there full time yet don’t really know the part timers except by face? Is this consistent with the fact that those who are responsible for certain routine functions, like equipment preparation, might in fact have a strong, friendly and jovial relationship with the part-timers they need to deal with, while those star players do not? That would go a long ways toward the “believability” of Brady’s testimony. These kinds of questions seem to me can be answered in a sensitive and honest manner by good journalists, and I wonder why none of them have thought of it (or maybe they have, and it is taking time to sort out and characterize and write it up).
What is more troubling however, but what I have come to realize there is a reason for, is why it has been so hard for Roger Goodell to figure this out. It is like he has no notion of what goes on in a NFL stadium at any time, game day or not. Could this be possible?!? I am leaning towards yes it is, and looks very much like something I have seen in the natural life of a manufacturing business, and that begins to explain a lot.
When a company is started, the principles are people responsible for developing the core product — engineers who write the patents, marketing people who understand the demand, manufacturing experts who can bring it into production, human resources people who can pull together and expand the teams needed to support everything, and financial people who can get the investors believing this will all pay off. However, eventually the company starts to run more or less on its own, and the original principles move on or retire or whatever. In the course of that time a different style of management takes over, people who generally have never, for this company or for any other company, been involved with any of the design or process development, but who can at least not screw up what is already a working organization. How person A gets chosen over person B for those jobs at this latter stage of a company’s life cycle is mostly capricious — lots of MBAs can pretty much handle it, and which one or the other gets chosen is mostly a matter of luck of some sort. Those latter-stage managers of course view themselves as important “value adders” but that is for the most part merely their egos talking.
This brings up a funny diatribe (I am just tickled that the pressure is finally being put on Goodell, so I can’t get enough of this type of sarcasm!) that was on Boston.com the other day, which said:
The argument for Goodell is that he’s led the NFL to untold riches as the most cunning commissioner in all of North American sports. But his is also a job that a chimpanzee with a second-grade education could excel at. Football’s popularity, despite the league’s image problem with domestic abuse, concussions, widespread greed, and duplicitous public relations scams (pink October, for one), is never going away.
The NFL is a classic cash cow, in other words. How did it get this way? Through decades of culture and the interrelationship between the sport and down-home family values, especially in the regions surrounding its core franchises; through the pluck and risk of its pioneers like George Halas and Curly Lambeau; through the grit and mud and effort of all the players who took and take the physical risks. Someone needs to run the show, but all they need to do is not screw it up. It has continued to grow under Goodell, but is it really that hard to figure out how to do that? The TV networks are chock-a-block full of creative people with new ideas, you just need to not be too stupid about picking the right or wrong ones. Meanwhile also you need make sure certain social problems from the world at large don’t seep in in under the doors. It takes a little bit more than “a chimpanzee with a second-grade education” (chimpanzees don’t go to school) but not a lot more.
In those cash cow business I mentioned, egotistical general managers (who also often are not much more than “a chimpanzee with a second-grade education”) sometimes, but not often grace, the work force with their presence on the factory floor. It is a lot like the queen inspecting the troops, just sort of a necessary farce for show. (Some day I would like to see the queen grab a soldier’s rifle and squeeze off a couple of rounds! She has that right, she’s the queen!)
Why is it that this whole deflategate pseudo-scandal is starting to become coherent and explainable in my mind, now that I think it is possible that Goodell is acting in a similarly regal manner? I need to be careful not to try to fit the facts, as I continue to learn them through study, to the hypothesis — or at least not without making falsifiable predictions. However, the types of questions, along with the types of additional explanations that Tom Brady offered, in the appeals transcripts sound an awful lot like Goodell rarely is among the day-to-day scenes in an NFL stadium. That can’t be, can it? That would be all I would want to do — hang out with the guys! And pretend I was one of them! That’s what a lot of the owners do, that’s why they’re owners!
Now of course on a serious note, Goodell needs, by the nature of his job, to go out of his way to not have favorites so he can never be a real fan in the way the rest of us are. This may preclude him being too chummy, but there is precedent for being a fan of the sport without being a fan of a favorite team, and that is among the press corps, especially the national press corps. He could be like them and learn from them — love the game without taking sides.
Maybe he does “get down” with the players and staff, maybe I’m wrong and he is a hands on guy and relates to the hoi paloi and gets a real feel for the game in all its processes and all its dimensions, but it just doesn’t sound like it.
We come full circle to Jim McNally. If Goodell, or maybe even a trusted colleague, was in tune with what went on in a locker room, it should have been easy to figure out what happened within hours. “Tom, do you know Jim McNally? Is it possible he altered the footballs? No, well I guess that makes sense.” Or “No? Well, if you don’t mind that does not sound quite right based on my general knowledge, so let me get back to you on that.” This would require no Ted Wells, no Exponent Inc, no months of rumor mongering and spin grenades — just common sense and decisiveness, like Lee MacPhail showed in the Pine Tar incident.
As I said, this is a working hypothesis for me and I will make a couple of falsifiable predictions. If aloofness is an issue, I will be able to find something about Goodell on an unrelated subject in his past. Also since I am not finished reading the appeals transcript, certain things should jump out at me one way or the other in there.
Hey if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. It is not core to my general conclusion that Brady is being wrongly punished, it is merely an issue of explaining why Goodell would do so.