AP

The NFL added another pair of executives, and some insulation for commissioner Roger Goodell in the process.

The league announced that Joe Lockhart was joining the league as executive vice president of communications, and Cynthia Hogan was promoted to executive vice president of public policy and government affairs.

The league release uses a lot of capital letters in those titles, but the cold weather has forced us to ration ours.

Lockhart was White House press secretary and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton (that job gets capital letters) from 1998-2000. He’s most recently been running a Washington-based commuications and government affairs firm, and fits with the league’s expansion of influence in D.C.

Hogan also has White House experience, working as deputy assistant to the President and counsel to the Vice President from 2009-13 in the Obama administration.

Both the new titles report to the league’s chief operating officer Tod Leiweke. That puts a layer of bureaucracy between Goodell and any unpopular decisions, and keeps him from having so much responsibility at the same time.