The NFL Must Look Into the Details in the Allegations Against Cardinals Owner Michael Bidwill

The Terry McDonough complaint starts with his own dispute, but the additional details deserve to be taken seriously by Roger Goodell.
The NFL Must Look Into the Details in the Allegations Against Cardinals Owner Michael Bidwill
The NFL Must Look Into the Details in the Allegations Against Cardinals Owner Michael Bidwill /
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The Cardinals–Terry McDonough situation is another workplace black eye for the NFL, in an increasingly long string of such cases. And you do have to start here—the jumping-off point for the case is, of course, a dispute between a single employee and his employer, and the damage the employer did to the employee’s career. To that end, when an arbitrator decides on the complaint, they will decide to what extent Arizona damaged McDonough.

That said, deep in the details of the complaint, McDonough opened two Pandora’s boxes in a three-paragraph nuke fired directly at Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill.

By way of example, McDonough is aware of an instance in which Bidwill cursed at and berated a young African-American employee in a racially-charged manner—at the same time Bidwill was serving as chairman of the League’s Racial Equity Committee. Such hostile conduct on the part of Bidwill created an environment of fear for minority employees.

McDonough also is aware of two separate instances in which Bidwill reduced to tears two pregnant employees as a result of his abusive and bullying mistreatment. One of the employees was 5 months pregnant at the time of the abuse; the other was 7 months pregnant.

Bidwill’s workplace misconduct is so pervasive and toxic, that he halted a 2019 corporate cultural assessment of the Cardinals organization that was being conducted by an outside consulting firm after an expansive initial round of employee responses criticized the Cardinals’ woeful culture and placed most of the blame on Bidwill.

Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill at a press conference
Bidwill is the latest NFL owner to be accused of fostering a toxic workplace :: Alex Gould/The Republic/USA TODAY Network

Through McDonough’s complaint, Bidwill could lose some money or some draft picks.

But those additional details? Those are the sorts of things that can cost an owner his team. Across sports over the past few years we’ve seen how discriminatory behavior against women and/or minorities in the workplace can lead to that conclusion, with examples in both Bidwill’s league (Panthers owner Jerry Richardson as well as, presumably soon, Commanders owner Daniel Snyder) and his home market (Suns owner Robert Sarver).

That puts the ball in NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s court, and with an owner who’s actually had a reputation for being pretty progressive on the whole (Bidwill’s served on committees, hired Black GMs and coaches, and Arizona was among the first teams to have women assistant coaches). The fact is, Goodell’s promised repeatedly through the situation in Washington that he wouldn’t tolerate the sort of working environment that Snyder allegedly fostered over two decades.

If you’re going to make that promise, then you have to turn over every rock in a case like this.

So while the arbitrator will probably be focused on the transgressions against McDonough himself, the burner phones and all that, the league, as I see it, had something more serious dropped on its plate. And it’s on Goodell to dig into what’s sitting there for him.


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Albert Breer
ALBERT BREER

Albert Breer is a senior writer covering the NFL for Sports Illustrated, delivering the biggest stories and breaking news from across the league. He has been on the NFL beat since 2005 and joined SI in 2016. Breer began his career covering the New England Patriots for the MetroWest Daily News and the Boston Herald from 2005 to '07, then covered the Dallas Cowboys for the Dallas Morning News from 2007 to '08. He worked for The Sporting News from 2008 to '09 before returning to Massachusetts as The Boston Globe's national NFL writer in 2009. From 2010 to 2016, Breer served as a national reporter for NFL Network. In addition to his work at Sports Illustrated, Breer regularly appears on NBC Sports Boston, 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, FS1 with Colin Cowherd, The Rich Eisen Show and The Dan Patrick Show. A 2002 graduate of Ohio State, Breer lives near Boston with his wife, a cardiac ICU nurse at Boston Children's Hospital, and their three children.