Is This Another Robert Kraft & Roger Goodell "Conflict of Interest?"

Bob Kraft (blue jacket, red pocket square), the owner of the Patriots, and Roger Goodell (NFL Commish, in the middle) are famously tight. Worst kept secret in the NFL.

How close are they? Well, besides the long-standing rumor that Kraft hand-picked Goodell to be the commish of the NFL?

According to The Sporting News, the NFL’s recently-announced “Chief Health and Medical Advisor,” Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, just happens to be extremely close with the Kraft family. Nabel, who is a cardiologist – and surprisingly, not a brain injury specialist – was appointed to the position by Goodell.

Here’s her connection to the Kraft family:

"Nabel is president of Boston’s prestigious Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which is a partner with the Kraft Group (Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s holding company) in a health-care center bearing the family name at the Patriot Place retail complex near Gillette Stadium. On the health center website is a photo of Nabel in a group that includes Josh Kraft, Robert’s son and president of the team’s charitable foundation. Kraft family members have sat on the boards of both Brigham and Women’s and the affiliated Massachusetts General."

Nobody’s questioning Nabel’s ethics, but it’s fair to ask why the NFL didn’t hire someone whose specialty involves head injuries. Is Goodell lazy enough to have met with owners about the hiring of a Medical Advisor, and his guy Kraft said, “I have someone for you,” and then the Commish just pulled the trigger?

Kraft is one of his bosses, after all.

The NFL has this gross habit of always finding someone where there’s a conflict of interest.