Two years ago, Time magazine declared NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to be The Enforcer. Now, he may be getting a different title.
Goodell is among finalists for Time’s 2014 Person of the Year award.
Editor Nancy Gibbs announced the eight-person slate on Monday’s TODAY show, with Goodell joined by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, singer Taylor Swift, Ebola caregivers, and protestors in Ferguson, Missouri.
The “winner” will be announced Wednesday. And Goodell surely hopes the “honor” begins and ends at just being nominated.
Candidates are chosen based on perceived influence on the news over the past year. While the title implies that it’s a positive award, for Goodell it would become an opportunity for Time to dredge up and to summarize the various missteps that generated a series of negative headlines and, at one point in September, an ESPN-fueled feeding frenzy for his job.
With the Robert Mueller investigation and report regarding the Ray Rice debacle still pending, a one-stop collection of the things that went wrong for the league office this year could become a fresh bucket of rotten chum.