NFL commissioner Roger Goodell came under fire this week for laughing at a joke about memory loss due to concussions. During the National Football Foundation awards banquet, Pro Football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach jokingly called Goodell by former commissioner Pete Rozelle’s name and then, after correcting himself, added, “I apologize; I had six concussions in the NFL.”

The joke was at the very least tone-deaf in the current climate. It’s like someone with lung cancer joking about his years of smoking. Knowing what we know now (about both concussions and smoking), it’s really not funny.

Yet Roger Goodell laughed. Granted, the joke was at his expense at first, so it made sense for him to good-naturedly chuckle. But when the joke went on to poke fun at the degenerative effects that concussions may have had on Staubach, it stopped being humorous.

Goodell, who represents the highest level of the sport, and who, incidentally, has already been put into a precarious situation by the upcoming Concussion movie, cannot send the message that concussions can to made light of. They’re far too serious to be used as joke fodder.

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