The NFL suspended Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games Friday, and like most decisions handed down by Roger Goodell and the league, it’s been highly controversial.
To add another layer to the story, it appears as there may have been a conflict of interest in the decision.
The lead investigator of the Elliott case is a woman by the name of Lisa Mendelson Friel, who just happens to be a New York Giants’ fan.
The fandom was confirmed by a feature done on her by The Daily Beast shortly after she was hired by the NFL, where it started the following –
She’s the sort of fan who turned the den of her Brooklyn home into a shrine (painting it Giants blue and red and decorating it with team paraphernalia and a life-size wall-hanging of Eli Manning), boasts season tickets that have been in her family for more than 60 years, and cheers her lungs out at every game at MetLife Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands.
“She’s a rabid Giants fan,” says Friel’s former boss, Linda Fairstein, the famed New York prosecutor-turned-crime novelist. “I can be sitting at home staying good and toasty, watching a game, and she’s out there in all kinds of weather,” Fairstein says. “She knows football inside-out.”
