"What you're really saying, is not that there's disparities in the way it's being officiated, that you don't like the rule. ... Listen, the committee looks at this every year," Goodell said. "This is one of those things, I've been in the league 35 years, I don't think there's any year we didn't look at this issue. It comes down to balancing a lot of issues. The professional standards we want to uphold. We do believe that our players are role models, and others look at that at the youth level, so that's important for us to hold that standard up. And it's part of being professional. So that's one element of it. We have taunting, which is a significant issue, and taunting fouls are up this year. It's probably a combination of making that a point of emphasis. But we look at that as sportsmanship, and that can lead to, in most cases when somebody taunts somebody else, somebody reacts, and that can escalate quickly. Those are things that we're really concerned about. We look at it closely. The committee balances those issues. I don't think they're being officiated inconsistently. You may not like the rule, you may not like the line that's been drawn, but we believe it's part of being a professional league."