Wiedmer: Maybe Roger Goodell should be ruler for all U.S. sports

photo NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell answers a question during a news conference in this file photo. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
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Is it really news that the Oakland Raiders used a third-round pick on Terrelle Pryor in Monday's NFL supplemental draft? Wouldn't it have been news only if they hadn't?

Isn't this similar (theoretically, anyway) to Las Vegas inking Charlie Sheen as its spokesperson under the slogan, "Whatever I've done, you can come here and do it, too"?

Pryor and the Raiders go together like peanut butter and jelly, baseball and fireworks, Michele Bachmann and unintended comedy.

The Raiders could have no more resisted taking Pryor than Congress can resist spending money the United States doesn't have.

But that's not what made the tainted former Ohio State quarterback's delayed entry into pro football either historical or hysterical. Its lasting impact is that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell approved the Terrelle Pryor Draft -- and that's really what it was, since none of the remaining five eligible draftees were chosen -- while upholding the NCAA's prior five-game suspension of the player for this college season.

This has not endeared Goodell to many of the nation's sports pundits, who believe the commish overstepped his boundaries with this ruling. And one does wonder why Pryor's legal team didn't challenge the five-game suspension, since many believe they would have won.

Did the league have something else on him? Or did the prospect of a protracted legal proceeding lasting beyond the league season's first five weeks encourage him to accept Goodell's tough love as the lesser of two evils?

We may never have an answer to that. But if there is justice, the NFL and NBA will use this single decision to alter the future of both those leagues and the NCAA in regard to misbehavior.

After all, if all are truly private businesses -- and one wonders how the NCAA keeps getting away with that when at least 80 percent of its Division I members are public institutions -- then shouldn't both pro leagues have the option of upholding NCAA penalties?

This doesn't mean either the NBA or NFL should always follow that path. In fact, much as many believe that the NCAA's chief shortcoming is that it is investigator, judge, jury and executioner, there should probably be an outside appeals committee to make a final ruling on decisions such as Goodell's on Pryor.

But this also wasn't a ruling without past history, since Pryor had previously volunteered to sit out the Buckeyes' first five games this season in exchange for being allowed to play in last January's Sugar Bowl against Arkansas.

Just because Ohio State's Tattoogate became a far more serious mess than first believed -- eventually causing Pryor to move on before he was ruled permanently ineligible -- doesn't mean he deserved a free pass to the NFL, complete with a $2.4 million rookie contract that includes a $591,000 signing bonus.

Would it be so unfair for both the NFL and NBA to at least consider honoring NCAA penalties in the future? Think a coach or player wouldn't think twice about breaking a major rule if it could cost him considerable money at the next level?

Think Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll would have been so cavalier about the NCAA rule book during his time at Southern Cal if he'd known he could be fired or suspended without pay from the NFL if the Trojans went on probation?

If nothing else, does anyone have a better idea at this point to clean up college athletics? Maybe making Goodell our nation's sports czar wouldn't be such a bad idea. At least there would be consequences for bad behavior and punishment would be swift.

Moreover, does anyone doubt that without measurements such as this, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel -- whose behavior was far worse than Pryor's if for no other reason than he's a 58-year-old coach and Pryor's an immature player -- will swiftly get an NFL gig?

Again, none of this should happen without an outside appeals board made up of honorable, intelligent folks with no ties or allegiances to the NCAA, NFL or NBA. And maybe such a board would have denied Goodell his Pryor ruling.

But in a country that's become either too lax, too leery or both to stand up for what's honorable and right, something needs to be done to make us all more accountable for our actions and behavior.

Certainly anyone is free to argue over the reasons Goodell did what he did regarding Pryor, and charges of grandstanding and bullying certainly might prove valid.

But given Pryor's past decision to willingly sit out the Buckeyes' first five games of 2011, it would be difficult for anyone to argue justice wasn't served by the NFL forcing him to miss the first five weeks of its season.

That he'll miss them as a bad-boy Raider only adds to the perfection of it all.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6273.

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