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\n Photo: Jim Watson\/AFP\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
At a press conference<\/a> Monday afternoon in the Oval Office, during which he announced that the 2027 NFL Draft will be held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and touted a new stadium for the city\u2019s Commanders, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell leaned to his left to directly address the president of the United States.<\/p>\n Like the rest of us, Goodell has been dealing with the problem of Donald Trump<\/a> for a decade now. The president was responsible for one of the most serious crises of Goodell\u2019s nearly 20-year reign as commissioner when Trump, during his first term, blasted the league for \u201callowing\u201d players to kneel during the national anthem and demanded that NFL owners \u201cyank the sons of bitches off the field.\u201d Amid declining ratings, Trump\u2019s intervention pulled the NFL into a political minefield it wanted nothing to do with. The episode was such a disaster that Goodell called an emergency meeting<\/a> with various owners, executives, and players to chart a path forward. \u201cTo me, this is like a glacier moving into the ocean,\u201d Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula said, mixing a couple of oceanic metaphors. \u201cWe\u2019re getting hit with a tsunami.\u201d\u00a0The waters got so tumultuous in 2020 that Goodell actually uttered the words \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d during the 2020 NFL Draft. (Another perfect example of Goodell surfing the political winds to and fro: He did that at the exact moment it benefitted him and the league<\/a> and then instantly scampered away. It is impossible to imagine Goodell ever saying those words again.) When Trump left office, Goodell was mostly able to yank the NFL out of the political maelstrom and get it back to printing money with few clouds of controversy hanging over it. Regardless of the commissioner\u2019s personal politics (he\u2019s married to a former Fox News anchor), there is no question that his life was easier with Trump out of office.<\/p>\n But with Trump on top again, Goodell \u2014 like so many other executives \u2014 is kissing the ring. And it seems that at some point between Trump\u2019s first inauguration and 2025, he\u2019s figured out exactly how to kiss it. At the press conference, Goodell thanked Trump for bringing the NFL Draft to Washington, D.C., even though Trump had absolutely nothing to do with that decision. He also thanked Trump for helping the Commanders secure their new stadium, a deal that \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 Trump also had nothing to do with. Goodell then made sure to praise him one more time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to also thank you,\u201d Goodell said, seeming to smirk to himself in an acknowledgment of how absurdly obsequious he could be, \u201cbecause in your first term, you helped us get a Canadian trade deal, which we want to make sure we note, again.\u201d Goodell was referring to a small, entirely forgotten section of Trump\u2019s 2018 renegotiated NAFTA deal that allowed the NFL to run Super Bowl ads on Canadian television<\/a>. What he was really doing, of course, was giving Trump what he wants and needs more than anything in the world: attention and praise. Trump, with that stupid rictus<\/a> plastered on his face, said, \u201cThey do not like me too much.\u201d And then Goodell went on with his stump speech as Trump stood by, looking bored. Once all the requisite flattery was over, the whole thing felt like a ribbon-cutting at a local supermarket. It made Goodell\u2019s past issues with Trump seem like a very long time ago.<\/p>\n Goodell has absorbed a fundamental lesson about Trump that his tech-CEO brethren are still struggling with: If you appease him enough, you can go about your business with minimal presidential interference. (At the Super Bowl, Goodell actually defended the NFL\u2019s commitment to DEI practices<\/a> without Trump seeming to notice.) Goodell is particularly well suited to this task, because as commissioner, he is an employee of the 30 NFL owners, whom he must placate on a daily basis. Bending the knee? Goodell\u2019s entire career is knowing how to bend the knee. That\u2019s why, in spite of all the NFL scandals of the last two decades, he\u2019s still here, stronger than ever.<\/p>\n When Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook stand beside Trump, you can feel the self-loathing wafting off them. Deep down, they know the president is a moron, but they feel (wrongly) like their businesses have no other choice. They are used to being in charge, and it clearly eats them up inside that they have to take a backseat to such a monumental doofus. But Goodell has made his entire career eating shit for richer, more powerful, even more out-of-touch billionaires. To get 30 of the wealthiest humans in the country \u2014 all of whom have spent their entire lives being told \u201cyes\u201d \u2014 to agree on anything requires a very specific set of skills: final-boss-level knee-bending. Goodell is the nation\u2019s signature oligarch wrangler.<\/p>\n On Monday, the commissioner\u2019s Trump strategy was in full effect: Praise him, thank him, give him what he wants \u2026 and then get the hell out of there. This inherent slipperiness is Goodell\u2019s superpower. After Goodell\u2019s remarks, Trump took questions from the assembled press horde, specifically about his \u201cplan\u201d to pay migrants to return to their \u201chome\u201d countries. As Trump blathered on \u2014 and said darkly, \u201cThey\u2019re never coming back, and that\u2019s the least of their problems\u201d \u2014 Goodell stood to Trump\u2019s right, with Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser (also there for the football press conference) to the president\u2019s left. The body-language difference between the two was profound. Goodell stood there blankly, moving his head left to right noncommittally, while Bowser, like Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer before her<\/a>, looked like she was searching for a black hole to escape into.<\/p>\n The advantage Goodell had over Bowser is not that he inherently agreed with Trump; it\u2019s that, unlike her, core convictions aren\u2019t part of his job description. We expect people like Bowser, or Whitmer, or Jeff Bezos, to have thoughts on This Moment in American History. There are no such expectations of Goodell. He can nod and smile<\/a> when Trump brings up the Big Lie and not suffer any price for it because everyone (Trump included) knows Goodell is what he always has been: an empty suit built for money to pass through.<\/p>\n The only thing that matters, Goodell has learned, is making the billionaires happy enough that you get to wake up and do it again the next day. It is how you succeed in the NFL, and it turns out it\u2019s how you succeed in Trump\u2019s America. There may be no other person more perfectly suited to stand next to Donald Trump than Roger Goodell. I\u2019m honestly surprised he\u2019s not already in the Cabinet.<\/p>\n