Jerry Heaps Praise on Goodell in Wake of Deflategate Ruling

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft laid into NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league as a whole this week after it was announced that Tom Brady’s four-game suspension for his role in Deflategate would be upheld. But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who has a couple players on his roster set to serve four-game suspensions in linebacker Rolando McClain and defensive end Greg Hardy, thinks Goodell is going a bang-up job.

"He's got obviously a very tough job," Jones said, per ESPN. "Now I see some people doing that, that's that old violin that's not feeling too sorry for him because that's why you pay the big bucks is to deal with the big problems. But he's doing an outstanding job. I can tell you firsthand that in his spot you have to with people that you are counting on to help build and to help excel as far as the National Football League, I'm talking about the owners, you have to know that you're going to make some decisions that are very unpopular with that particular group. This is the case.

"I can speak to that because on a personal basis as well as for my franchise and our Dallas Cowboys franchise, we've had that happen to us. I'm sitting there living with the result of the commissioner's decision still today that I didn't agree with when it happened. And so some of the very people sometimes that have the biggest complaints, they're the ones who give you a phone call and say, 'Hey let's be a team player now and let's all get in here and realize that this happens to everybody and let's go on and compete. We've got a great league and a great game.’”

If Brady actually serves all four games, the final game he’ll miss will come against the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium in Week 5.

“I think Tom Brady is arguably as great a quarterback as we've ever competed against since I've been in pro football,” Jones said. “And so the fact that he may not be there is substantive. I don't want to in any way say that the teams Bill Belichick puts together up there and Bob Kraft owns can't figure out a way to beat us without Tom Brady. If anybody can do it, they can do it.”