Roger Goodell and the NFL don't have a lot to be thankful for these days.
I'd like to offer them one.
The Philadelphia Eagles.
If there was ever a sports entity in need of a good story, it would be the almighty NFL. Who would have thought it?
Then again, when you handle a situation like the Ray Rice saga as poorly as the NFL has, it's not hard to figure out.
Then late last week the Adrian Peterson story blew up, with the guy many believe is the best back in the league facing charges of child abuse for beating his young son with a tree branch. Now there are questions about the scar a second son sports on his face.
Rice, of course, was the star of a surveillance video in which he is shown delivering a wicked left jab to his then-fiancee's face, knocking her cold.
For awhile there last week, you almost forgot that this league once was about sport, and games.
With the national spotlight focusing on them on Monday Night Football, the Eagles - at least for a few hours - put the spotlight on what is going on between the lines.
The Birds and Colts put on a great show, with the Eagles rallying for the second straight week from a double-digit deficit in the second half and snagging a huge win on a last-second kick.
Now we can go back to kicking around the NFL.
This morning we get news that the Vikings have had a change of heart. After announcing that they would play Peterson this Sunday after keeping him off the field last week, they apparently have had a change of heart. They have put their star running back on the shelf indefinitely until his legal issues are resolved. He must stay away from all football activities in the interim.
Coincidentally, the move comes just hours after a huge NFL advertiser, the beer barons at Anheuser-Busch, said they were disappointed at the way the league is handling its off-the-field issues.
The Vikings also heard from one of their local advertisers, Radisson Hotels, which indicated they were pulling their support.
Roger Goodell and the NFL have always operated by a standard business mandate:
Money talks.
Now they're getting a view from the flip side of that coin.
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