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The commissioner will show up. Type of.
According to the NFL, Roger Goodell has accepted an invitation from the House Oversight and Reform Committee to testify at a hearing on June 22. However, he is not personally grilled. He will appear virtually.
“The Oversight Committee was notified this afternoon that Commissioner Goodell accepted the invitation,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said via email. “He will appear virtually.”
That won’t really change anything. He will continue to face aggressive questioning regarding the Commander’s investigation, the flimsy reasoning for non-disclosure of information gleaned during the investigation, the inexplicable decision not to seek advice from attorney Beth Wilkinson, and whatever the committee members ask him anything else – from Deshaun Watson to Stephen Ross to Jon Gruden to the League’s insistence on internal arbitration (hey, I didn’t call it a secret rigged kangaroo court) and anything else that might pop up.
But it will seem far less dramatic when Goodell is not in the room, sitting across from a panel of representatives who will respond to a non-answer he may offer not by moving on to the next topic but by telling him that he did it. Don’t answer the question.