On Monday morning, NFL Media’s Jim Trotter announced that his contract with the league-owned operation would not be renewed.
On Tuesday afternoon, Trotter suggested that his repeated questions to Commissioner Roger Goodell about diversity, equality, and inclusion in the NFL newsroom played a role in the decision.
On Tuesday evening, Goodell rejected that assumption.
“I was not part of that decision, and I actually learned about it about 10 minutes before I got here,” Goodell told reporters at league meetings in Arizona. “So, no, I don’t think that has anything to do with it.”
Not being involved in the decision does not definitively prove that there was no connection. Sometimes, code red happens without asking for code red.
“Who will save me from this nosy priest?” , as Miles Simmons likes to say occasionally (or often), is all it takes.
Or maybe someone in the NFL Media department decided on their own to flag Trotter for termination after watching Trotter ask pointed questions about Goodell at two consecutive pre-Super Bowl press conferences, and he recently added this eyebrow-raising quote from James Baldwin when confronting Goodell about the subject: “No. I believe what you say because I see what you do.”
No, Goodell wouldn’t need to tell anyone to fire Trotter. Goodell’s simple, seemingly informal expression of displeasure to someone in NFL Media management (For example“I’m surprised you don’t have better control over your employees”) will send the message loud and clear.
I’m not saying that’s what happened. No one will ever know what happened, in the absence of litigation. who could already come.
