How odd would it be if, after a tumultuous decade of debacle and debate in Roger Goodell’s NFL, the one to bring down the commissioner turns out to be Donald Trump?

For the first time in his tenure the Goodell’s job is in danger and the uncertainty has come swiftly. Just weeks ago Goodell was on the verge of a five-year contract extension worth more than $100m. The new deal was believed to be certain, an affirmation that although Goodell has irritated many of the league’s owners and is wildly unpopular with fans, those same owners believed he could keep making them mounds of money. Then in September Trump railed about Colin Kaepernick and the other NFL players kneeling during the national anthem and everything blew up.

On Sunday, ESPN reported that a group of 17 owners, including Dallas’s Jerry Jones, held a conference call last week to discuss stopping Goodell’s contract extension. The ESPN story said many of the owners were upset about the controversies of Goodell’s tenure including the mishandling of Ray Rice’s domestic violence case. But make no mistake, the owners’ discomfort isn’t about domestic violence or even fiascos like the Saints’ Bountygate or the Tom Brady Deflategate. This is about Trump and the anthem protest story that won’t go away.

In barely more than a month Trump has thrown America’s most lucrative sports league into chaos. By twisting Kaepernick’s plea for a national conversation about race into a referendum about patriotism, Trump has made many of the owners uncomfortable. The NFL’s owners are a group terrified of anything that damages the outlandish valuations of their football teams. Trump’s words have rattled the sponsors and advertisers who keep that money pipeline full. ESPN’s extraordinary accounting of the meetings between protesting players and the owners shows how uneasy the owners have become.

When the Houston Texans’ Bob McNair said at that meeting: “We can’t let the inmates run the prison,” he spoke a belief silently held by many of his fellow owners (that quote came back to haunt him on Sunday when 40 of his players knelt during the anthem in response to his comments). Goodell and the armada of attorneys who fill the league office might have walked the league into plenty of awkward public blunders over the years but the system that controlled the NFL’s mostly African American players remained intact.

Despite the best attempts of owners to keep Kaepernick away from their teams, Kaepernick has given those black players a voice. Goodell’s inability to control the players seems to represent an inexcusable failing for the owners.

Goodell, of course, cannot make players stand. At this point any attempt to do so will ignite a player mutiny. The league’s owners have been played by Trump much the way Trump has played most anyone who has stepped in his way. Now they are scrambling to get rid of their commissioner because they don’t know who else to take out. While they conceded in the ESPN story they might not have the votes to stop Goodell’s extension – essentially firing the commissioner who has another year on his current deal – the fact they held the call at all is the most serious threat to his omnipotence.

Three years ago Trump tried to buy the Buffalo Bills for $1bn, losing by $400m to Terry Pegula, who already owned Buffalo’s hockey team. The role of Goodell, a Buffalo native, in facilitating that transaction is unclear, but Trump was unhappy then. The owners would have hated having Trump in their club (although many of them still donated to his inauguration committee) something the USFL’s owners learned in the early 1980s when Trump bought the New Jersey Generals. Many of the USFL’s owners still despise Trump, whose bluster they blame for ruining a certain anti-trust court case against the NFL.

“The mistake he made, which was absolutely fatal, was that he convinced the owners about the lawyer that he hired to sue [the NFL],” Tad Taube, the owner of the USFL’s Oakland team told the Guardian last year.

The USFL should have won millions of dollars in damages and might have forced a merger of some of their teams into the NFL. Instead, the jury awarded them $1. For that, Taube and other USFL owners blame Trump’s choice for a lawyer, Harvey Myerson, who they thought as windy and empty as Trump himself.

Now, as an outsider, Trump is terrifying the NFL’s owners even more than Kaepernick. They are wounded and scared. And because of it, Roger Goodell’s once iron hold on his job seems very precarious indeed.

Fantasy player of the week

The Buffalo Bills are contenders in the AFC East. Photograph: Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

LeSean McCoy. Very quietly, the Buffalo Bills are looking like a playoff team. Their 34-14 trampling of the disappointing Oakland Raiders pushed them to 5-2 which would put them in first place were it not that they live in the same division as the Patriots. McCoy, who rushed for 151 yards and a touchdown, is a big part of the Bills revival – and he plays better and better with each week.

He is still a year away from turning the dreaded 30 – that age after which most running backs decline. If Buffalo can get a few more great weeks from McCoy they may just be a threat come January.

Stat of the week

19. This is the number of sacks Los Angeles Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa has through his first 20 NFL games, an NFL record. Bosa has proven to be a tremendous draft pick for the Chargers who took him in the first round last year. He is quickly developing into one of the top defensive players in the league, but he wasn’t enough of a help for the Chargers in their 21-13 loss at New England.

Bosa might be a tremendous pass rusher but he’s not going to get more than one good hit on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady who is one of the best-protected quarterbacks ever. Brady managed 333 yards passing in the victory that pushed them to 6-2 and kept them in first place in the AFC East.

Video of the week



Vikings rookie running back Jerick McKinnon doesn’t seem to realize he got in on the left side of the car instead of the right when “driving” over the Browns at Twickenham on Sunday. He should probably be forgiven for forgetting that his imaginary car is not in the US. The seat belt, ignition key and gear shift are all on the wrong side. But the metaphor he was communicating in Minnesota’s 33-16 victory was appropriate. In this post-Aaron Rodgers world, the 6-2 Vikings are in the driver’s seat in the NFC North And may be in great position for a first round bye in the playoffs.

Quote of the week

Jimmy Graham celebrates a touchdown with 21 seconds left in the game against the Houston Texans. Photograph: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

“It was like a heavyweight fight out there, it was like Buster Douglas vs Tyson.” – This was from Seattle Seahawks running back Thomas Rawls after Seattle’s crazy 41-38 victory over Houston that included three touchdowns in the last six minutes. The Seahawks uncharacteristically gave up 509 yards and also put up an unusual 479. It was a big home win for Seattle, however, who got a game-winning touchdown on a Russell Wilson touchdown pass with 20 seconds left. No wonder Rawls was drained.

Wilson threw for 452 yards and four touchdowns while Houston rookie Deshaun Watson had 402 yards with four touchdowns as well – but he also had a costly three interceptions. With the win, Seattle remained in a first-place tie with the Rams in the NFC West at 5-2.

Elsewhere around the league

– The Jets seemed set for a big upset over Atlanta only to blow a late lead (again) and lose 25-20, knocking them to 3-5 and ruining some of the early-season hope they could be a surprise contender in the AFC East.

– Philadelphia quarterback Carson Wentz continues to dominate, this time throwing for 221 yards and two touchdowns as the Eagles beat San Francisco 33-10, pushing their record to 7-1 and solidifying their two-game hold on first place in the NFC East.

– Ezekiel Elliott ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns in a rainstorm as Dallas beat Washington 33-19.

– Cincinnati’s Carlos Dunlap ran an interception back 18 yards for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter and the Bengals beat Indianapolis 24-23.