Nowadays, many approach a particularly troubling P.R. predicament by waiting. Do nothing, say nothing. Time passes. The world moves on to something else. The next controversy. The newest scandal. The latest social-media craze.
And while that has yet to happen with the Epstein files — and possibly won’t — the NFL’s approach to Giants co-owner Steve Tisch’s “brief association” (or otherwise) with Epstein seems to be do nothing, say nothing.
Sure, Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the situation during his Super Bowl press conference. He had no choice; he was asked about it. He said something while not really saying much of anything. Given the format, he avoided being truly pressed on the subject with the kind of meaningful follow-up questions he’d get in a sit-down interview on the topic.
And now that Goodell has said what he said, the NFL needs to simply say what it said to The Athletic for its latest article regarding Tisch and Epstein: See what Goodell previously said.
Goodell said the league will investigate Tisch, sort of. Essentially, they’ll pre-investigate. They’ll investigate whether there needs to be an investigation.
But what is there to investigate? The emails between Tisch and Epstein are what they are. The only way to learn more would be to interrogate Tisch regarding the specific contents of the emails, and/or the liaisons to which they referred.
It’s the ideal setup to justify doing nothing. To justify saying nothing. To justify waiting for the world to move on.
But it overlooks the simple fact that the league already has enough to justify investigating and disciplining Tisch, if it truly wanted to. At the bottom of the list of bullet points identifying “prohibited conduct” in the Personal Conduct Policy is a broad, catch-all provision: “Conduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity of the NFL, NFL clubs, or NFL personnel.”
Here’s the real question. Does an owner sending and receiving emails that objectify women in skeevy terms undermine or put at risk the integrity of the NFL, NFL clubs, NFL personnel?
Failure to take action based on the emails sends a clear message: No, it doesn’t.
That’s the NFL’s prerogative. But there’s support in the Personal Conduct Policy for the league to conclude otherwise, especially if the league truly is committed to holding owners to a higher standard.
If the league does indeed do nothing based on the available emails, it’ll be no surprise. The league is the owners. The owners are the league. And some owners won’t want a standard that is applied to one of them to be potentially applied to others.
That’s one of the reasons why it took so long for the NFL to force Dan Snyder out. There was a concern that any disgruntled employee could make an allegation of misconduct and spark an investigation that, based on what Beth Wilkinson or Mary Jo White found, could force an eventual sale. (Once allegations emerged that Snyder may have been playing games with ticket money that is shared by all teams, the reluctance to take action seemed to change.)
So, no, it’s not likely that Tisch will be forced to sell or even suspended. Not without something more. While old emails with unsavory content may be enough to take down a coach, they probably won’t be enough to take out an owner.
Because if emails like that can take down one owner, they can take down other owners, too.