FanHouse Greg Aiello

On Thursday afternoon, ESPN reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would reinstate the suspended former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, and that if a team signed Vick, he would then be suspended for his first four regular-season games.

That came as news to the NFL, which went on Twitter to dispute the report.

Last summer, I explained an NFL policy designed to limit the amount of video and audio content that traditional media could put on their online ventures. As a part of the credentialing process, the media had to agree not to use more than 45 seconds of interview content each day. The video could only be kept on the website for 24 hours, couldn't be archived, and the website had to have a link to the NFL website.

The Houston Chronicle demonstrated the absurdity of jamming multiple interviews into 45 seconds with the above video that includes Texans owner Bob McNair (!) in it (this video was captured before it was removed from their site).

This year, the NFL increased the time limit to 90 seconds (pdf link from Vikings credentials):

The 2008 NFL credentials impose a 90-second limit on the use of online and other new media non-game audio and video content obtained as a result of credentialed access. Such content may not be "archived" (i.e., made available for on-demand public access) for more than 24 hours on the Internet, may not incorporate integrated advertising, and must be accompanied by links back to NFL.com and to the team's web site.

The reason for this rule? According to the NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello, they want to protect the NFL's own Pravda coverage internet operations:

This week has been as miserable a week as you could imagine for the Washington Redskins. The next seven days figure to test their wills even further. They play Buffalo on Sunday, bury their fallen teammate Sean Taylor on Monday and then play the Bears on Thursday, a game that will be played as scheduled despite calls for it to be moved to the weekend.

None of those calls were actually made by the Redskins, though, and even though they expressed a willingness to postpone the game, the Bears didn't contact the NFL either. Greg Aiello, the NFL's senior VP of communications, spoke with Jason LaCanfora of the Washington Post and said no change was forthcoming.

"I have not heard any discussion of any of it. We haven't been contacted about it, not that I am aware of. There's nothing to it. No one here has heard about it. It's just some rumor that won't go away, but there is nothing to it."

LaCanfora also spoke to the 'Skins and they said they won't be making the request to the league. The game, like last night's Packers-Cowboys thriller, will be on the NFL network and, thus, unavailable to millions of football fans who would be eager to follow what has become, sadly, the biggest story in the NFL right now.