Sorry, Patriots fans: Roger Goodell has other travel plans Sunday, won't be in Foxborough

When the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots won their divisional round games last weekend, it set up a fascinating question: What would Roger Goodell do this coming weekend?

After all, the NFL commissioner typically visits different stadiums on each week of the playoffs, and he was in Atlanta last Saturday and Dallas on Sunday.

With Sunday’s conference championship games set in Atlanta and New England, Goodell wouldn’t go back to the same stadium for a second straight week, would he?

Well, of course. Goodell naturally wouldn’t be greeted with a welcoming party if he were to go to Foxborough, given all that has unfolded the past two years. Deflate-gate kind of changed everything, and it would be the second anniversary of our long, national nightmare on Sunday. Goodell became Public Enemy No. 1 in the six-state region and hasn’t been to Foxborough since — and might never come back.

Of course, this all could have gone differently. Yes, certainly the NFL could have changed the way it handled the deflated balls thing in hours, not years. But Goodell also could have avoided this particular situation altogether sooner.

Breer is right. Not that Patriots fans would have forgiven Goodell for suspending Tom Brady for four games and hammering the Patriots with egregiously large cash and draft-pick fines. But he should have just faced the boos before now and showed some strength on this thing. Instead, by hiding at a stadium he has already visited in the past week — even if it is the final game ever at the Georgia Dome — Goodell looks like he’s scared. The man has a house in New England; does he not go outside when he’s there?

More so than Mike Tomlin calling the Patriots a-holes, this story seems to have fans there all riled up. It’s amusing because if you asked them in, say, Week 8 if they wanted Goodell to come to a game, their response might be, “Hell no!” But now that he’s not coming? They are seething mad at his absence.

“Whattya scared of, Rahjah?!”

In a weird way, this might hurt the Patriots in terms of crowd noise. Gillette Stadium is known to players and fans as one of the quietest in the NFL, and having Goodell there might incite them into a frenzy. Sure, the excitement will be high with the disliked Pittsburgh Steelers in town with a Super Bowl berth on the line. But having the utterly despised Goodell watching from some well-shielded perch still could bring out seething rage that the Steelers never could.

Perhaps it was a safety issue; we don’t know if NFL security received any threats against Goodell prior to this game. If it was, his absence could be understood … by most people. But if this is the commissioner finding an excuse not to go, well, then it looks bad. Not as bad as a lot of other things that have gone down on his watch, but bad nonetheless.

Sorry, Pats fans. You’ll have to find something else to get riled up about on Sunday. Maybe the referees?

Of course, if the Patriots win the whole enchilada, Goodell has nowhere to run to. The Super Bowl ceremonies — especially if Brady were to win game MVP honors in Houston — would be fascinating theater. Maybe Goodell secretly knows this will help ratings. It’s doubtful, but if so he’d be a mad genius. Certainly, his track record suggests otherwise, but what a scene that would be.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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