What if a Boston columnist had devoutly wished the Patriots could have their own Bountygate?

Turns out that's not such a bad idea. Because now, three years later, national writers, like Matt Taibbi here, are starting to figure out that Roger Goodell's disciplinary program is kind of a sham.

If and when democracy collapses under the upcoming Trump administration, Goodell's discipline process is what the criminal justice system will look like: secret evidence, double-jeopardy prosecutions, judges serving as prosecutors and vice versa, no right against self-incrimination, no right to face accusers, ex post facto lawmaking, conviction by inference, etc.

Of course it's hard to get worked up about any of this, because the "crimes" Goodell punishes involve things like leaking air out of footballs. But that's what makes all this so absurd. It's like a Poconos-comedy version of Stalinism.

Continue reading for the stuff about Bountygate that most New Orleans Saints fans had already learned through their own traumatic experience. But apparently every city must undergo its own Goodelling in order to get it right.