Last week, Spin IT contributor Jonathan Palazzolo wrote a great response to Jeff Duncan's ludicrous Times Picayune column which stated that the citizens of New Orleans should "hail Goodell as a hero."

It was a very calculated, over the top ploy to increase NOLA.com traffic. There is a very small fraction of Duncan's point that actually should ring true to the people of NOLA, though.

It's time to stop enabling the media's onslaught against the relationship between our city and a man who, for the most part, is actually very insignificant to us.

Having skipped my Astronomy class (Side Note: I'm in my fourth year of a completely different major set to graduate in May; I will never use a class like this for anything other than striking up pointless, broad conversations about stars with people), I walked through most of the French Quarter to see all of the different sights that come with hosting the Super Bowl. Remember, I'm 21. The last time the city hosted the game, I was 10. This is all very new to me.

I was out there on Saturday night, but it was mostly just a change in the look of what's normally very familiar to me. The Cathedral looks like something straight out of Magic Kingdom at night, and the Jackson Square area of Decatur going down about 4 blocks heading towards Conti Street is way brighter than usual. It's filled with more tourists, too, but that's expected around this time of year with Mardi Gras anyway. Really, it wasn't anything that I hadn't seen with the BCS National Championship game and Final Four here last year.

This morning was very different, though. It was 9AM on a Monday with a 4PM Saturday feel. Press passes all over the place, people talking about the one other time they've been in New Orleans, middle-aged and old ladies alike waiting in line on St. Peters hoping to get into whatever crappy CBS talk show was going to air in a couple of hours.

Then, there was the coup de grace... ESPN's center, which is currently taking up the entire parking lot by Jax Brewery, making it that much more difficult to find any parking inside of the Quarter.

I plan on being out there a good deal this week, so I'll have plenty of pictures, videos, and personal memorabilia, but today, I didn't really have time to do a lot, so I listened. There were two shows being aired live from "the heart of the French Quarter," The Herd with Colin Cowherd and bits of SportsCenter with Hannah Storm and Adam Schefter.

Because it's SC live, they tend to repeat themselves for viewers who are waking up with them. They only do this with the topics that they think their audience really wants to hear about.

Today, Schefter thought it wasn't out of line to generalize the thoughts and feelings of an entire city, insisting that we all "do not like" Roger Goodell and that we won't "welcome" him. I tried recording it, but I kept coming in halfway through him talking about it. Thankfully, ESPN does a great job of keeping tabs on themselves, so they posted a video.

For the record, I'm pretty sure this segment was from after I was there because I can't see myself, and I would have noticed the stupid lady waving to the camera. What's said in the video, though, is basically what was said when I was there.



New Orleans has a very homey feel to it. People tend to feel like they're citizens when they're here because the city does its best to accommodate everyone as well as possible.

However, there's a boundary that's being breached lately, and the city's graciousness is being abused. Adam Schefter is not a local. To speak on behalf of the locals and make a complete generality about the people of the city wouldn't even be appreciated if he were from New Orleans. The fact that he isn't makes it that much more audacious.

I get around the area a lot. In the French Quarter, to my knowledge, there are only a couple of restaurants with the "Do Not Serve This Man" sign. With the exception of Coop's, I wouldn't care about being banned from any of the ones who have put up the signs. The way the national media talks about it, though, you'd think every restaurant has banned him.

I encourage some of you to call in asking various restaurants in the French Quarter about whether or not they'll be serving Roger Goodell during his stay. Some of them may not even know whom you're talking about.

It's a publicity grab on the part of the restaurants because it's become the media's obsession, and honestly, New Orleanians have had a lot of fun with mocking Goodell. He's become a caricature of himself.

As Jonathan Palazzolo alluded to last week, to imply that Goodell's walking around the streets or entering a restaurant would result in possible violence or even being berated with a barrage of insults is very much an exaggeration, but it's become one of the stories of the week nonetheless.

Nobody has the time to really hate Rog. It's Mardi Gras. If you're not working, you're enjoying the company of others. I can't say that there wouldn't be some who may shout something incoherent at him if he were out and about, but that would have probably happened to him anyway. Again, it's New Orleans during Mardi Gras season. Even without the "Bountygate" ordeal, there would be three types of interaction that I think he'd face:

1.) People minding their own business.
2.) People who seek attention and will say anything (usually abrasive language) to be acknowledged by a celebrity.
3.) People too drunk to recognize Roger Goodell.

Is anyone actually willing to go out on a limb and suggest that Goodell's experience in New Orleans would see any other types of interaction?

Why can't Roger Goodell just be a sort of normal person in the city?

I know that sounds naive, but let's take a step back momentarily and look at this objectively.

ESPN says New Orleanians (in general) "hate" him and will continue to "hate" him when a number of people who aren't sports fans still don't even know his name, and casual observers who know of him definitely wouldn't recognize him by face.

Jeff Duncan of the Picayune treats the locals as if they're all somehow indebted to Prince Goodell and tells New Orleanians to basically bow to him as he graces the city with his presence. By doing so, he gets anonymous nods of approval by national media types like Hannah Storm as "some local columnists." I can only assume that attention is what continues to fuel one of the worst sports writers in the nation to keep churning out hits for the failing newspaper that is the Times-Picayune.

I digress.

I'm calling for a compromise between those two suggestions.

I encourage the commissioner and everyone else across the nation to stop treating media outlets (local or national) as if they're authorities on New Orleanian behavior, because they're not.

The collective uniqueness of the city is birthed only by the diverse array of cultures and thought processes that live in it. Each person has a different opinion about how Roger Goodell should be treated during his stay here. Those who don't want him in their bar or restaurant are entitled to tell him so. He knew where the Super Bowl was going to be when he started up his baseless witch hunt last March.

However, I'm fairly positive that just as many places would be indifferent to him eating, drinking, or doing whatever by them because his money's as green as anyone else's.

Some people may strike up conversation with him, asking questions about Bountygate and topics of that sort while others may be a bit belligerent. With his reputation from even a year ago, it's not like he doesn't need a bodyguard in every city that he visits anyway.

New Orleans will always indiscriminately be New Orleans, even if it tries its hardest to not be for one individual who slightly wronged them.

So please, stop treating New Orleanians as if we're stupid, stubborn animals when it comes to the Goodell issue... because we're not. And honestly, most of us don't invest as much emotion into it as the rest of the nation seems to think.

And that's a generality that everyone reading is more than welcome to run with.

Learn to take a joke for what it is.