Roger Goodell’s latest contract extension might be his last

Roger Goodell recently overcame Jerry Jones’ best efforts to prevent him from getting his extension. “If not for Jerry,” one person familiar with the contract negotiations told ESPN in September, “this deal would be done.”

Goodell and the NFL owners agreed on a five-year extension, that could pay him up to $200 million if bonuses are met. His contract guarantees $4 million a year.

However, we won’t be having the same discussion in five years, according to league spokesman Joe Lockhart, via ProFootballTalk:

“The Commissioner has been clear that he views this as his last contract and will allow him to both deal with some of the important issues that we know are on the horizon — the CBA, our network partners — and it’ll also allow him to spend a significant amount of time not only at his level but among his executives working on succession,” Lockhart said during the annual NFL owners meetings at the Four Seasons in Irving, Texas.

Lockhart also mentioned that private plane won’t always be around:

“There are no post-retirement consulting payments of any kind after the commissioner leaves. The commissioner, as he does now, has use of a plane, but as he does now, he pays for private use. Going forward, if he wants to use, we use NetJets, and if he wants to use that, he will pay for that. There’s been significant uninformed discussion about that.”

Later in the afternoon, Goodell countered what Lockhart said:

Goodell’s tenure as commissioner has never had any quiet moments. He brought in a personal conduct policy, increased safety measures, and had a couple of scandals you may have heard of.

How he has handled those scandals has been one of the biggest talking points of his tenure. He initially suspended Jonathan Vilma and three other Saints players for the entire 2012 for Bountygate. However, only Gregg Williams, Sean Payton, Joe Vitt, and GM Mickey Loomis were punished.

There have also been long, drawn out legal cases. The first came with Deflategate, where the Patriots allegedly deflated footballs in the 2015 AFC Championship. The battle went on for 544 days, before Goodell ultimately won.

More recently, there was the Ezekiel Elliott case, but he gave up much sooner than Brady did, and will be returning soon from his suspension.

It’s hard to say who his successor will be now, if we even have to think about that. But in terms of keeping things interesting, Goodell’s would be hard to top.