John Oliver joins the chorus of those laughing at Roger Goodell
Add John Oliver to the ever-growing chorus of mainstream-media outlets laughing at, not with, the NFL. John Oliver’s HBO show “Last Week Tonight” took on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s already-infamous Friday afternoon press conference. All but the most diehard NFL apologists found the press conference long on bloviating and short on substance, and Oliver zoomed right in on the prevalence of word-like product being spewed forth.
Plus, there’s the thorny matter of possibly, you know, lying. “You know that things are not going well when you lose the moral high ground to a TMZ reporter,” Oliver said. He also praised the players who live-tweeted the press conference, particularly Sidney Rice’s ghost-emoji’d “Boo this man.”
You can write this off as another jokey segment, but it’s part of a larger cultural trend, one the league desperately wants to halt. Plain and simple: the NFL wants to be worshipped and adored. The NFL is also fine with certain segments of the population ignoring it, such as those who might question the league’s nonprofit status, de facto legal and medical networks, and other elements that don’t look so good in sunlight. What the NFL least wants is to be laughed at and mocked. The shield is dented, the aura of invincibility gone.
The NFL’s greatest fear — becoming a punch line — has arrived.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or find him on Facebook or on Twitter.
