“You can never assume you have all the answers,” a 47-year-old Goodell said on Sept. 6, 2006, five days after succeeding Paul Tagliabue as commissioner of America’s most popular sports league.

AD

These were the words of a nice guy: down to earth, inclusive and approachable. Sure, Goodell might suspend a player as he began cleaning up the league’s image and defend its “shield,” but he would first invite the player to New York for a chat — and, often at the end, a hug.

Goodell has now been commissioner for a decade, and his tenure has been marked by remarkable growth and considerable turmoil. He has developed an edge, and Goodell’s public image is so poor the league office itself isn’t sure how to rehabilitate it. He is perhaps the most unpopular figure in sports, and at times he seems to have finally embraced his role as a villain. At the NFL draft this past April, boos raining down on Goodell now something of a tradition, the commissioner looked into the crowd and raised his arms. “Come on,” he said. “Bring it on.”

AD

As his second decade as commissioner begins this week, there is a fact about Goodell that cannot be denied: If these past 10 years were a competition, like him or not, he has won. He made enemies and ruffled feathers, refusing to let go of matters involving a bounty system in New Orleans and deflated footballs in New England. Goodell, over the years, has taken on allies and most famously picked a fight with close friend and Patriots owner Robert Kraft over “Deflategate,” refusing to allow Tom Brady to beat him. Players can protest his unilateral authority structure, but they have a losing record against it.

In June, not long after a Congressional study found the league had attempted to influence concussion research, an appeals court sided with the NFL on a settlement to former players who suffered from severe neurological diseases related to football-related head injuries — a significant, if not final, victory in an ongoing debate over player health that may be the foremost challenge to the stability of the league.

This year, the NFL is poised to surpass $13 billion in annual revenue, almost double what it earned in 2006. Team values have soared; nine of the 32 franchises are worth at least $2 billion. Goodell himself made $34.1 million in 2014, the year in which the league fumbled through a season overshadowed by domestic abuse issues involving Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson and ongoing questions about concussions. February’s Super Bowl was the third-highest-rated television program in history, and Goodell recently oversaw the St. Louis Rams’ move to Los Angeles. With the regular season set to begin next week, no major scandal hangs over the league.

AD

AD

But after 10 years, the nice guy is gone. In his place is a rich, shrewd and occasionally stubborn blend of a chief executive and a politician — complete, this past February, with a 28 percent approval rating. And yet he may be more powerful now than he has ever been.

“If it doesn’t kill you,” said Carmen Policy, the former NFL executive who considers himself among Goodell’s friends, “it makes you stronger.”

Weathered by the storms

He walked to the lectern in 2011, wearing his trademark slate suit and blue tie. Goodell smiled at first when the crowd booed at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. “I hear you,” Goodell said.

Then the chants began. “We want football!”

AD

Goodell looked away. His smile faded.

“I hear you,” he said again. Then: “I agree with you.”

Goodell, waiting to open that year’s draft, had previously been a popular figure in the league: affable, charismatic, passionate about standing up for the NFL. Now this: He was the symbol of Big Football and the frontman for owners who had locked out players and ordered the first work stoppage since 1987.

The chants continued. Goodell’s smile was gone as he tried to mute the crowd and acknowledge destruction caused by tornadoes in the Deep South.

AD

“Okay, guys, before we get started, uh … Let’s all take a moment,” he said, pausing and seemingly rattled as he looked into the stands. “Guys, just a sec.”

AD

Five years later, this is the moment seen in NFL circles when the nice guy began to fade. The league office knows its commissioner has an image problem, often made worse by bizarre public reactions to sensitive issues. “He has some rehabilitation to do,” a longtime acquaintance of Goodell’s said.

The NFL, though, is uncertain of the best way to proceed. It often leans toward limiting Goodell’s public appearances and interviews; an NFL spokesman said Goodell, who incidentally got his start in the league’s public relations office, was unavailable for this story. Another former league office insider predicted that Goodell’s job, at least in the near future, will be more solution-oriented than sales — meaning the commissioner will operate more often in the background than in public, compared with his first decade.

AD

“His resolve has only grown with each challenge and opportunity,” said one of Goodell’s colleagues. “And yes, there were mistakes made, but we’re better for it.”

AD

In January the league hired Joe Lockhart, the White House press secretary during President Bill Clinton’s scandal with intern Monica Lewinsky, to begin repairing the league’s image. In the last two years Goodell hired Tod Leiweke and added new heads of marketing and security. Several high-ranking, longtime staffers have left. Those within the league office see natural transition as the NFL’s needs evolve.

Others see something different: a commissioner now willing to listen, as he vowed to do 10 years ago this week.

“I think he made it clear behind closed doors,” said Policy, who said he speaks frequently with Goodell. “We screwed up here. We’ve got to learn from this.”

AD

AD

Amid the challenges, no challenger

This time last year, Deflategate remained unsettled and it was natural to wonder whether change might soon come to the commissioner’s office. Franchise owners publicly stood by Goodell, but many of his moves — Tagliabue would overturn much of Goodell’s discipline in the Saints’ bounty case in 2012, and Goodell reversed course on disciplining Rice two years later — made the league look disorganized.

Often, as Policy would put it, the commissioner presided over the NFL with “a clumsy, heavy hand.”

“When you balance it all out and you look through the whole process,” Policy said, “you say to yourself: It could’ve been done in a smoother, easier and less turbulent fashion.”

AD

Even longtime acquaintances questioned Goodell’s enthusiasm during the case against Brady. Until the league won, anyway. Last September a district court in New York ruled in favor of Brady, waiving his four-game suspension for his role in Deflategate. Goodell of course said the league would appeal, and this past July a circuit court sided with the NFL. Yet another appeal by the NFLPA was rejected, and nearly 18 months after Brady and the Patriots allegedly used deflated footballs to defeat Indianapolis to reach the Super Bowl, the two-time MVP conceded. He will in fact sit out New England’s first four games.

AD

Sure enough, Goodell got his victory.

Another leader “would’ve said: This is a bad hand, it’s not worth it; I’m going to cut my losses,” one of the acquaintances said. “You order that attack and it doesn’t go well, you’re done. Roger orders the attack and he wins and he wins decisively.”

AD

But no matter the outcry or public jockeying, according to interviews with individuals familiar with the thinking of key franchise owners, Goodell’s job security was never in danger. In fact, owners gave so little thought to replacing him or looking beyond 2018, when Goodell’s contract is scheduled to expire, that no league figure was seriously considered as a potential replacement. Even now, no one is ready to step in as the commissioner’s successor.

Pressed to speculate on what owners might look for in a future commissioner, one league insider — who was among several sources granted anonymity to honestly evaluate Goodell’s performance and the way he is viewed after 10 years — said it would be essential for the NFL’s next commissioner to come from within the league office. Policy disagreed, saying that fresh eyes would benefit the NFL.

AD

But familiarity of the league’s complex structure and knowledge of its business dealings are highly valued by franchise owners, and a background in business or broadcast media would likely be valued over a legal pedigree.

Tod Leiweke, who joined the league last year as chief operating officer, and Brian Rolapp, a former NBC Universal executive who now leads NFL Network, are two long-term possibilities. Neither is seen as comfortable enough with the many roles of the commissioner — stadium finance, revenue strategies and relationships with owners, union officials and politicians in particular — to be ready for the big job within even five years. Joseph Siclare, an experienced league office employee on the finance side, could be tapped to fill the job temporarily in the event of an emergency. But neither Siclare nor general counsel Jeff Pash, Goodell’s No. 2 and an unpopular figure among many owners, is seen as a viable commissioner candidate.

Even during Goodell’s darkest days — various storms swirling, outsiders calling for his removal — there was never even a threat from someone to take over.