“I believe the league should pursue a policy where if there are two personal fouls in the game, there is an automatic ejection of the player”, Goodell said. “I believe that’s consistent with what we believe are safety issues, but I also believe it’s consistent with what we believe are the standards of sportsmanship that we emphasis”. We have to be aware of, in terms of coaches, that we have to control our players and that the players can control themselves in certain situations and certain circumstances. But he also said he expected most of the fans at the game would be for the Raiders, which he called “a global brand”.
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Let me know in the comments how you feel about Goodell’s proposal.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said it’s “very much a priority” to work on keeping the Raiders and San Diego Chargers in their current markets, and Davis said he supported that sentiment.
“Getting the head out of the game is a very important initiative at all levels”, Goodell said later in the conference. “All along and this is the one thing I will say, and I’ll say it again for the 50th time, there’s three words that mean something to me in a stadium, in a location, and that’s ingress, egress and parking”, he said. “We worked with a number of players to make changes in the game”.
Goodell believes a spate of retirements among relatively youthful players, including 49ers Patrick Willis (30), Anthony Davis (25) and Chris Borland (24), in addition to Jake Locker (26) and a possible retirement by wide receiver Calvin Johnson (30), are not related and not necessarily because of safety concerns.
But if that sounded like a tone-deaf, back-of-the-hand answer to a question, consider how Goodell ended the session responding to a question asking if he felt comfortable about encouraging parents to have their kids play football after seven high school players nationally who died of injuries suffered in games or practices this season.
Beyond the Twickenham experiment, the National Football League has also agreed a 10-year deal to play two games annually at Tottenham’s new stadium, due to open in 2018.
And there have been other prominent examples like former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill, one-time San Diego Diego Chargers standout Junior Seau and then 25-year-old Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, who a doctor said likely had CTE when he shot and killed his girlfriend then himself in 2012.
The Raiders will be the home team at Azteca Stadium in Mexico’s capital city. Goodell said he was not happy with the lackluster game played last weekend.
■ The Pro Bowl is probably going to get a makeover.
“If it does, I think that’s a realistic possibility”.
ESPN will take its Monday Night Football franchise south of the border in November when it televises the Houston Texans-Oakland Raiders NFL football game, the network said Friday. “We believe it will be a tremendous success”. Every year I go back to London I see the fans are more sophisticated. I respect what they do.
– The league does not plan to change its policy of testing players for marijuana, which has been legalized in some states.
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“When it comes to daily fantasy, I think it’s a different issue”, Goodell said Friday.
