It’s actually shocking that Roger Goodell doesn’t make more money

Is it crazy to think that Roger Goodell is worth the money?

Bear with me here.

There’s a report out that the NFL’s commissioner earned a 2014 salary of $34.1 million, and people are aghast at how such a hated public figure — who might not even be that good at his job— is worth that kind of annual salary, the likes of which most of us won’t come close to making in 40 or 50 years of working.

I get it. To Joe Football Fan making $50,000 a year and shells out thousands of bucks a year to support his favorite team, sympathy for Goodell or any other NFL suit would be in short supply. The idea of that kind of coin for the man who has been blamed for the league’s concussion problem, its domestic-violence problem, its officiating problems, its lack of quarterback talent or even those hideous color rush uniforms … well, it proves troublesome to many.

But it’s shocking that Goodell doesn’t make more.

Oh, he used to. We’ve seen Goodell’s salaries north of $40 million in recent years. But times are tough, you know? And Goodell, like all of us, must make do in these wintry economic times.

The league has a public-relations problem. The bottom line appears to undercut that. Maybe that has an expiration point. Maybe people stop supporting a game that has myriad issues but people love football with an addictive passion. That’s not stopping anytime soon. The quality of the game would have to deteriorate significantly for that to happen.

People naturally ask: What does Goodell even do? You want to know what Goodell’s job responsibilities, boiled down, really are? Ensure that the 32 member clubs make money, hand over fist. That’s No. 1, followed by be a human shield for The Shield. To take bullets on all those big issues. When things go wrong in the NFL, fairly or not, it’s Goodell we blast. That’s how it’s set up. And everyone wins — the league, the owners, Goodell and even the media, who have an easy fall guy.

What’s a man’s reputation worth? For a company with a brand value that’s in the billions, it’s not wild to suggest that he could reasonably be worth paying $50 million or more per year, even if that seems wildly absurd at face value. (A quick aside: Can we work this topic into the next Democratic debate, if for no other reason than to see Bernie Sanders’ reaction?)

This list of the highest-paid executives in the United States suggests that the lowest salary of the top 25 comes out to $44.3 million. That would be the 2014 earnings of David C. Drummond, the chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development at Google. The NFL is a brand right up there with the biggest names in corporate America — Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Amazon, McDonald’s, Starbucks, IBM, Disney and the like.

It can be argued that none of those executives should make that kind of money, but that’s a whole different discussion — and, hey, let’s face it, it’s not happening. As cute as the whole $1-per-year club is, headlined by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, these are people who are already richer than God. With stock holdings. So let’s not make them out to be too heroic.

Let’s be clear: I am not going to start a GoFundMe on Goodell’s behalf, although … wouldn’t that be kind of hilarious? If you think the comments below this story and others here are inflammatory — WHOO BOY! We could really have some fun with this.

No, the point was just that Goodell making even bigger money wouldn’t be out of whack with what some of the other biggest corporate CEOs are pulling in, and Goodell might be more famous than nearly all of them. Why? He’s famous because he’s a tremendous whipping boy for the media, which — again — is part of what he’s paid to be.

Could the league survive without Goodell? Moreover, couldn’t a trained monkey do as good a job as he does and notch a far better Q Score? To the first question, yes. To the second, ha, no, but yes, that might make for a fascinating PR move.

America is all about being promoted past one’s worth, and that’s what happened with Goodell. His finest hour, it would seem, came as the first lieutenant to former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue where he earned his reputation as a stern negotiator, a smart businessman, a political animal and a relentless worker. That helped result in a massive stadium-building swell in the league over the past 20 years, a rat race that continues to this day.

Goodell also has been credited with some of the international growth of the game, which is an ongoing process that — amazingly — could grow the game by another 10, 20, 30 percent or more over the next decade. At his state-of-the-league address at the Super Bowl, Goodell boasted of his desire to see the league realize a revenue goal of $25 billion by 2027. Good God, are you listening to these numbers?!

If that happens, then Goodell should make even more. And if not, or if the league’s trend of negative public relations in the face of domestic violance and concussions and the like takes a massive turn for the worse, the owners who pay Goodell’s ridiculous salary can just fire him, hold him to some non-disclosure agreement he likely signed with his contract and hire the next suit in line to be the NFL’s human Kevlar. That’s the institutional process. Welcome to the machine.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm