By now you know that a federal judge just gave Roger Goodell a taste of his own judiciary thunder when he ruled that Tom Brady's Ballghazi suspension was to be vacated immediately. And Roger being Roger, he responded to the ruling by digging in his ginger heels and vowing to appeal. YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE LAST OF ROGER GOODELL, JUDGE BERMAN. I bet this man tries to have his own death overturned one day.

The eternal rebuttal to anyone crying out for Goodell's ouster is money. Yes, he has a nasty habit of overstepping his bounds and getting smacked down in court, but MONEY. Yes, the players despise him, but MONEY. Yes, Goodell is a continuous embarrassment to the league, but MONEY. Ratings for next week's opener (featuring, oh, look! Why, it's the Patriots!) will be insane, and Goodell's few remaining supporters will point to those ratings as empirical proof that Goodell remains a moneymaker without peer; that his deliberate idiocy and overbearing imperiousness make for some masterful formula of leadership that only he alone can gin up. In the eyes of owners not named Robert Kraft, all these court losses are irrelevant compared to the steely-eyed, hardline ATTITUDE this man brings to the negotiating table. Goodell sits down to bargain, makes his frowny face, and MONEY magically appears. I'll let Kent Babb explain Goodell's aura of impenetrable resolve:

“Good is not good enough,” a former league office colleague said of the kind of outcome Goodell pursues. “It’s got to be perfect.”

This fucking guy. Goodell operates in a state of delusion wherein the league's financial welfare and precious integrity are entirely dependent on him, never backing down from anything, ever. This is garbage, of course. All of Goodell's mythical negotiating power comes FROM the NFL's dominance. It is not the cause of it. Of course Goodell was able to extract onerous concessions in the last round of collective bargaining. Of course he was able to get the networks to pony up billions in broadcast fees. Of course he could have the patience to secure the most lucrative possible stadium deal from L.A. before moving a team there. HE'S REPPING THE NFL! You tend to be a good negotiator when you are pre-gifted with all the leverage in the world.

If this is the only positive thing Roger Goodell can bring to the Commissioner's office, he should be fucking fired. Today. Right now. Look again at his statement from today. This is a man who is pathologically unable to be nuanced, or adapt to adversity, or find creative solutions to any problem. He's just gonna appeal this into oblivion because in his mind, flexibility is for the weak. He is a living avatar of the worst qualities in the football culture. Instead of being progressive and dynamic, he remains fixated on preserving this 1950s buzzcut image of the sport, no matter how transparent the league's phony commitment to morality becomes.

Keep in mind that Goodell's prior settlement proposal to Brady came with a demand of confession: a tortured-out admission from the game's most famous player that he was a bad little boy and that he's so sorry to Roger for impugning the dignity of his league. It was a request for submission. Goodell's sole methodology of leadership is to be an intractable dick. He has no other moves in his repertoire. He doesn't learn. He doesn't know when to quit.

And at some point, this rigidity, which has proven so lucrative for Goodell's bosses, will finally have real financial consequences for the league. The bill is coming. Formerly suspended players will all take him to court (notorious wife-beater Greg Hardy is reportedly on the verge of doing just that, though he seems to be a creep). Brands will revolt. City councils will refuse to be cowed. If they don't fire Goodell now, it will all start to trend downhill.

So why let it? Why not sell high and get out of the Goodell business now and replace him with some other, more publicly benign dictator who will have the full weight of the NFL aiding him at the bargaining table? OTHER PEOPLE CAN DO THIS JOB! I swear it's true! Some of them might actually have law degrees!

Kraft can't be the only owner who sees Goodell for what he is now. He must have allies. He must have fellow owners who know that Goodell is becoming a legitimate liability, not just a convenient whipping boy whose public disgraces serve a supposed counterintuitive benefit to their interests. Now is the time to get rid of the guy before, at last, he drags the sport down with him. They should fire him and then hurtle him out of the league office with a catapult.

And then they should be ready for him to appeal.

For more proof that Goodell is the worst, click here.