Woody Johnson Puts the Wood on Roger Goodell

How much did the Jets want to open the new Meadowlands Stadium? According to ESPN, enough to rip into Mr. Goodell.

“An NFL coin toss has a few fundamental elements that are missing here, most notably the presence of the teams involved,” Jets owner Woody Johnson said in a statement. “That’s how it’s always done in the league, whether it’s determining the order of the draft or deciding who’s going to kick off the game.

“When the issue of which team would be hosting the first regular-season game could not be resolved on the merits, I suggested a coin toss as the fairest way to resolve this issue. The league rejected that idea. Then, I was told on Friday that a coin toss had taken place at the league office and that the Jets had lost. We rejected a process in which neither team was present. The league departed from our time-honored tradition and declined the opportunity to set the matter straight with a transparent process.”

For something this important to both teams, I would think that the team owners would have considered some sort of compromise solution for who would open the stadium long before the decision resulted in a coin toss. As Mr. Johnson puts it, team representatives should have been present for such a contentious coin toss when a final resolution was not at hand.

I wonder how much Mr. Johnson gets fined for defying the commissioner?

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