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It would be easy to do the moral outrage thing. The righteous indignation thing. The sermonizing from a soapbox thing.
There's a whole lot of that in any NFL conversation these days.
I don't have the energy for it, though. All that speechifying requires a level of passion I can't channel at the moment.
What I do have are questions.
I will concede many are not so much actual questions as mostly rhetorical ones. We already know the answers to most of our NFL-related questions these days don't we?
Pretty much the only question we don't have a good answer for is "Why doesn't Roger Goodell know these same answers?"
Still, I guess I better ask 'em again, so as to give El Jefe some direction in his stated quest to start doing things better. After all, if the amount of time it took him to reach his initial Ray Rice decision is any indication, waiting on him to complete said process of betterment could be more drawn out than the making of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy."
So here we go …
• Why did you EVER think two games was a sufficient punishment?
• Do you really think anyone believes you only saw the video of Rice dragging his fiancée's unconscious body out of the elevator and not the one of him actually punching her out?
• Even if you did only see THAT video, was it such a big leap of logic to reach the conclusion that he punched her out?
• So, again, why did you EVER think two games was sufficient punishment?
• Do you think anyone buys your line about requesting the inside-the-elevator footage but not being "given the opportunity" to see it?
• Do you think anyone believes you didn't see that second video when a law enforcement officer provided proof he sent it to the league office?
• Why is it that, despite your many months of supposed requests, and all your vaunted connections to law enforcement, you couldn't acquire that video, but a celebrity tabloid website got it with a single phone call?
• Might the lack of any record of you actually requesting the video have something to do with that?
• Does that even matter, considering a law enforcement officer sent it to you anyway?
• Why are you hanging your hat on "But I honestly didn't see that video until this month"?
• Do you think you'll come off better by being viewed as merely incompetent and ineffectual than as a liar?
• Don't you realize that the public views you as all of those anyway?
• Again, even if you did only see the first video, was it such a big leap of logic to reach the conclusion that Rice punched her out?
• And so again (again), why did you EVER think two games was sufficient punishment?
• Do you really consider this "independent investigation" to be independent when it's being spearheaded by two owners considered your closest confidants?
• Do you really not see any conflict of interest in the primary investigator being employed by the law firm that just helped you negotiate a multi-billion-dollar TV deal?
• Are you so smug because you know that, so long as fans whine but keep watching, and that so long as advertisers "express concern" but don't actually withdraw their financial backing, your job is secure because the owners are only too happy to continue the parade of dumptrucks full of $100 bills coming to their estates?
You're right … there WAS some moral outrage and righteous indignation in that last one.
But, like Mr. Goodell, I promise to do better next time.
That should be enough, right?
Twitter: @esotericwalden