Haven’t done what I’m about to do for a while, but I thought it might be fun and generate some good discussion.
Who are the 22 most influential NFL people in 2022? (I cheated. I did a bonus person, number 23.)
I tried to mix the business of the sport with the sport of the sport. They’re all in here: eight from the playing field (and a ninth player for a specific reason as the bonus person) six from the league office, two coaches, a media guru, a media kingmaker, four owners (one new, one reviled, two mega-men), 20 men, two women. There are surprises at numbers six and 10, but not surprises to me.
The landscape of the game is changing. I’m sorry that the eight players of 22 are all quarterbacks, but I tried to make an argument for Aaron Donald or Davante Adams or Tyreek Hill, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to put a Donald, say, in the 22 most significant figures of football in 2022. Quarterbacks rule. Argue with me: peterkingfmia@gmail.com will be the repository for your arguments.
Here is my list of the 22 most influential NFL people in 2022:
Throughout a tenure of major growth for the league—Goodell will mark 16 years in office on Sept. 1, nine months shy of predecessor Paul Tagliabue—the commissioner has survived storms, some of his own doing. He’s got three major ones coming this year: presiding over the presumed appeal of the presumed sanction to Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson; what do with the owner driving the Washington franchise into the ground, Daniel Snyder; and how to adjudicate the inter-owner brawl over who pays the $790-million bill in the settlement over the Rams relocation from St. Louis. Messes abound.
We had all assumed Goodell, 63, would be riding off into the sunset from the high-pressure
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