The Cowboys' Jerry Jones was a leading voice among 17 NFL owners on a conference call Thursday that discussed the possibility of halting commissioner Roger Goodell's pending contract extension, sources involved with the call told ESPN.
There is a growing difference of opinion among owners about Goodell's overall performance as commissioner, according to sources. The owners on Thursday's conference call are generally unhappy with Goodell and the NFL's front office for a variety of reasons, including the player protests staged during the national anthem, issues regarding the relocation of teams to Los Angeles and the league's handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case, according to sources.
"You don't get to have this many messes over the years like Roger has had and survive it," one owner said during the call.
Despite the unhappiness, this group of owners is skeptical that it will be able to outright fire Goodell, according to sources. The NFL would need 24 owners to approve Goodell's ouster. But one person involved in this past week's conference call compared the NFL's current situation with Goodell to Major League Baseball's situation with Fay Vincent in September 1992, when baseball owners voted 18-9 to ask him to step down and replace him with Bud Selig.
"There is, and was, something that is an issue," said a league source who was not on the conference call and didn't learn about it until Saturday night. "I'd be very surprised about wanting to change Roger. I'd be shocked about that."
Yet for all the prominent people who do support Goodell, a contract that was expected to be completed in September has not been finalized as November approaches.
"Maybe Arthur [Blank, the head of the compensation committee] and that committee think they're on track," an owner said about Goodell's extension talks. "But they have a lot more resistance than they counted on -- and maybe they don't know how the resistance is growing as we speak."
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