Hear Me Out...Advice for Roger

It's safe to say everyone is caught up on Kareem Hunt fiasco. The news broke about Hunt last Friday while I was writing last week's column, and I thought about scrapping that column to write about Hunt. Obviously I didn't, and I decided to wait because other than the video there wasn't a lot of information out. That and I was like 80 percent finished with last week's column. But now that a week has past and we've been able to digest all the new info, I have a few thoughts.

You'd think after the Ray Rice scandal in 2014 NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would have learned from his mistakes. He even wrote a letter to the NFL owners about doing a better job next time around.

"At times, however, and despite our best efforts, we fall short of our goals," Goodell wrote. "We clearly did so in response to a recent incident of domestic violence. We allowed our standards to fall below where they should be and lost an important opportunity to emphasize our strong stance on a critical issue and the effective programs we have in place. My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. I didn't get it right. Simply put, we have to do better. And we will."

Reading that and seeing how Goodell handled the Hunt incident, it's fair he's learned nothing and that his instincts are, well, poor. But I'm not going to dump on Roger for this column, he's getting enough of that and it's probably part of the reason why he's in hiding right now. Plus, it's too easy to say that he's bad at what he does or that Condoleezza Rice should be the next commissioner.

Instead, I'm here for Roger. I'm going to give him 100 percent free advice and he won't even have to credit me when he uses it.

Roger, I know this feels like déjà vu. TMZ has once again thrown egg on your face, but rather than throwing the egg this time they've used a T-shirt cannon at pointblank range. I know the talking heads are saying the NFL doesn't care about women and some other knee-jerk generalizations. The truth is the NFL loves women, because I'm sure you've seen the data that women are the NFL's fastest growing market.

The boom the NFL has experienced during this decade is in large part due to an increased female viewership. Women accounted for 49 percent of the Super Bowl LII's viewership, that's a 2 percent increase from 2015 when women made up 47 percent of the Super Bowl audience. Some might poo poo that data saying "It's the Super Bowl, and the women are only watching because of the ads and halftime show."

But you know better Roger because a study done by Ohio University found that from 2009-13 total female viewership during the regular season increased by 26 percent, compared to 10 percent for men. Adding more proof that women were being drawn to the NFL was that, from 2014 to 2015, female participation in fantasy football jumped from 20 percent to 34 percent.

So while the NFL's male audience seems to have plateaued, the female audience continues to grow. And here's my advice Roger, the league and yourself have paid a lot of lip service to being better about responding to domestic violence and/or assaulting women. But the time for talk has passed, action is what's needed. You need to follow through on your words.

The Hunt fiasco was a disaster because the hotel at which said incident took place wasn't cooperative and the Cleveland PD wasn't much help either. But that shouldn't be an excuse, because Roger, you said you were going to do better post-Ray Rice and that's why you brought in Lisa Friel to establish a protocol to follow when incidents like this happen.

From all the reporting done the past week it looks as if your team really only looked into about half of what they needed to and didn't come anywhere close to exhausting the investigation. It's almost as if you hit a few roadblocks, gave up and stuck your head in the sand. Next time this happens, follow through, step by step and leave no stone unturned.

Roger, you made no official attempts to get the video until after TMZ made it public. This is another instance where you have to exhaust all possible means. All the legal experts say you dotted all your i's and crossed all your t's, you asked for the video and the hotel said no. But you need to find a way to get that tape and I'm not suggesting anything illegal. Just make absolutely sure that you did everything within your power, short of robbery, à la Watergate, or any other illegal means, to get that tape. You got the police report without having to file for a request, you could have done the same with the video.

Roger, if you run into another hotel or business that's as difficult as the hotel in the Hunt incident, there's one other way to pressure them to releasing the video. You go to the media and say something along the lines like, we've tried everything but they have the video and they're refusing to let us look at it. Then you can talk about how you want to finish this investigation with 100 percent accuracy and the hotel or business is preventing that from happening. I'm positive you'd get to look at the tape then.

Here's my last and most important piece of advice for you Roger.

Give a damn.

The NFL could be a powerful voice and pioneer in helping curb domestic violence and assaults on women. Yes, as a result you will lose a few talented players but good riddance. You don't need those players, let them play in the XFL or whatever that league is called that Ricky Williams is setting up. You have plenty of good dudes in the league like Calais Campbell and Larry Fitzgerald, don't let men like Hunt and Reuben Foster spoil things for the rest.

That's not to say you ban a player for DV or assaulting a woman right away, I believe second chances are an important part of life, but a season's suspension should be in play, along with mandatory counseling. Then once the player is remorseful for their actions and a better person for it, they're back in the league. This way you'll be able to weed out all the Reuben Foster's.

Bring in Deborah Epstein, Susan Else and other experts in dealing with domestic violence to help find effective ways to deal with this issue. Originally, Else and Epstein were working on the NFLPA's Commission on Violence Prevention but left because of nothing was getting done.

Domestic violence isn't exclusive to the NFL, it happens across all leagues and is a serious problem in this country, but Roger, you have the chance to help flip the script. The NFL can be a leader in all of this. I know selling this new approach to some of the 32 owners will be tough because there's no money to be made and doing the right thing doesn't compute. But just remind them, in the simplest of terms, if they continue doing nothing, that healthy, positive trend of female viewership will start to shrink and with that goes money.

I believe in you Roger, now go get 'em.