When Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said last week that he won’t sue over the extension to Commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract, Jones seemed to hint at a quid pro quo.
“I told the [Compensation] Committee that I was standing down on legal action because they wanted to get input from all of the owners,” Jones told Jarrett Bell of USA Today.
During a Tuesday media briefing, NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart said that no promise was made to submit the Goodell contract to all owners for input and/or approval in order to avoid a threat of litigation from Jones. Lockhart instead reiterated that the Compensation Committee received its authority in May 2017, via unanimous vote of the owners, to finalize a Goodell deal -- and that nothing has changed.
The league’s repeated reference to this mandate has fueled a belief that the Compensation Committee will execute the contract this week, essentially preventing Jones from trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat, or elsewhere. That approach, based on Jones’ words from a week ago, could potentially revive the litigation threat.