Jerry Jones is fond of the secret ballot as an instrument of dealmaking, and today, he’s reportedly introduced it as the latest weapon in his siege against Roger Goodell and other NFL owners. According to Pro Football Talk, Jones wants to use this secret ballot to get the owners to vote on, well, something. Nobody’s quite sure what he wants to do with it yet, but it probably has something to do with Goodell:
The specific purpose of the secret ballot isn’t yet known, and the precise plan possibly hasn’t been finalized. As one source explained it to PFT, many different approaches and permutations of votes are possible.
If 17 owners vote in favor of using a secret ballot, then the secret vote in question will be held and it would then take 24 owners to approve whatever it is Jones wants, presumably the negation of a 32-0 vote to negotiate a contract extension with Goodell. Jones has a history of conducting secret votes, and the last time he pushed for secret ballots, he got his way and helped Stan Kroenke move the Rams to a new stadium in Inglewood, defeating a proposal to move the Raiders and Chargers to a shared stadium in Carson.
In other Jerry Jones vs. Roger Goodell news, the compensation committee formally denied Jones’s request that they take another vote on an extension with Goodell, per a report from the Wall Street Journal. Jones and the other owners on that committee, most notably Falcons owner Arthur Blank, have spent the last two weeks threatening to threaten each other in a gossipy display that’s really accomplished nothing. They sent him a letter today telling him to shut up and, in the Journal’s words, “knock it off”:
The committee also again advised Jones to drop the issue, saying that his unwillingness to do so “reflects conduct unbefitting an owner and is damaging to the League,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Okay cool, see you all here again tomorrow when someone sends another letter about all these letters.