From a Taylor Swift conspiracy theory to diversity in coaching, NFL commi sioner Roger Goodell fielded questions on a wide range of topics to kick off Super Bowl week in Las Vegas.Goodell spoke Monday in a controversial invite-only news conference. His appearance came on the opening night of the championship week, just before players from both the Chiefs and Brandon Graham Jersey the 49ers met with reporters, asopposed to past years, when Goodell received a brighter spotlight on the Friday before the big game.The commi sioner addre sed another supposed controversy, as he answered media questions about the rumors of an NFL script, which, per the conspiracy,."I don't think I'm that good a scripter, or anybody on our staff. Listen, there's no way that I could have scripted that one. Let's just put it that way," Goodell said.MORE: Goodell also broke news regarding the NFL International Series, revealing that , would take place on the first Friday of the NFL season and that the Eagles would be one of the two teams playing in the game.The NFL commi sioner had plenty more to say in his pre s conference. Here's what you need to know.Diversity in the NFLNo topic received more attention from Goodell on Monday than diversity acro s the league.Goodell described the 2024 head-coach hiring cycle as "encouraging." Of the eight open spots, four went to minority candidates in Raheem Morris (Falcons), Dave Canales (Panthers), Antonio Pierce (Raiders) and Jerod Mayo (Patriots).Asked whether he believed such progre s could lead to an elimination of the Rooney Rule, which ensures teams interview at least one minority candidate for head coach and senior executive vacancies, Goodell said that would make it "a wonderful world." But he believes the rule remains nece sary.Mayo's hiring in particular prompted questioning, as Patriots' a sistant coach had his promotion to head coach written into his contract. While Mayo would count toward the Rooney Rule, another team could potentially use such a clause to get around the rule. But Goodell said he is not concerned about that."If you're making a commitment someone's going to be a head coach a Mike Quick Jersey year from now, I don't think that's proven to be a subversion of that," Goodell said. "If that becomes a reality, we'll have to addre s that. But again I think there's a really smart approach to be able to develop our own personnel and put them in the positions of being head coaches. That's a good thing, ultimately."MORE: While diversity among head coaches improved in the recent hiring cycle, the opposite was true foroffensive coordinators. No Black offensive coordinators have been hired by NFL teams so far in 2024 despite a 2022 policy from the league that requires each team to have at least one female or minority offensive a sistant coach.That is a sign of the work still to do,Goodell said, but he defended the policy as just taking time to have an effect."I don't think it means the policy is not working. I think these programs take a while. Offensive a sistants are young. They need the ability to have exposure to the experiences to grow, to be able to get the kind of experience to become offensive coordinators and then head coaches," Goodell said. "I think it's too early to say it's not working. I don't accept that at this stage."Former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter, who told in March 2023 his contract with NFL Media would not be renewed, was not present at the invite-only pre s conference. But for the third straight year, his question regarding Black representation at NFL Media was asked. KLKC Radio's Darren Smith told Goodell there were no Black managers, Black copy editors or full-time Black employees on the news desk working at NFL Media, and asked why there has not been any change.Well, I disagree completely that there hasnt been any change, Goodell said. Im happy to get your data and share it with our people and make sure that we get an answer for you. I dont have all the data. I will tell you that the first time ever, 51% of our employees acro s the league, acro s the network, acro s all of our media platforms, not including players, are either people of color or women. First time ever. So progre s is being made."And there are areas where we still need to work and we still need to improve, whether its offensive a sistants or maybe people within our media newsroom. We will continue to do that, and make significant progre s, as we have. against the NFL, alleging he was let go for asking Goodell about diversity within the NFL Media newsroom in back-to-back Super Bowl pre s conferences. Currently a columnist for The Athletic, Trotter weighed in after the question was asked to thank Smith for asking it and to call out Goodell.Another fact refuses to acknowledge: outside of the reporters in the NFL newsroom, there are ZERO fulltime Black employees. In a league whose player population is majority Black. Let that marinate for a minute. Jim Trotter (@JimTrotter_NFL) 49ers' practice field i suesIt's the Super Bowl, which means there is bound to be Quez Watkins Jersey some i sue with the turf. This time, the playing surface is under scrutiny before the game even begins.The 49ers believe the practice field at UNLV's campus is too soft, , though it likely meets the safety criteria of the league, according to Goodell. The 49ers could request to practice at the Raiders' facility, where the Chiefs are currently practicing, if they still believe the field conditions to be le s than ideal.Goodell explained there has been plenty of work done to make sure the field is in good enough shape for San Francisco."That work is being done every single day. We had 23 experts out there. We had the union out there. All of them think that's a very playable surface," Goodell said. "It's softer than what they have practiced on. But that happens."It's well within all of our testing standards. It is something that we think all our experts, as well as neutral field inspectors, have all said unanimously that it's a playable field."NFL officiating a se smentIt never takes much for NFL officials to get back in the news. Last season's Super Bowl featured thanks to a holding call. This season, countle s questionable calls frustrated coaches, players and fans.Before the big game, Goodell addre sed the state of officiating in the NFL and his a se sment of officials during the 2023 campaign.Goodell pointed to the extreme scrutiny faced by NFL officials as the highest among the major pro sports due to the league's popularity and the advancements in technology."At the end of the day, no one's perfect. Whether it's all of us that watch the games or play the games or coach the games or the officials," Goodell said. "We have to continue to try to get better. We have to work to use technology where we can to try to improve their performance."In particular, Goodell called Shaun Bradley Jersey out the officiating at the end of the Chiefs-Bill regular-season game in which , negating a potential go-ahead touchdown by the Chiefs. He said the outcry would have been loud had officials mi sed the call."Even when the official gets it right, there's criticism. So while we're always going to try to get better, I think people have to understand to some extent how these officials were put in that position. And they do an extraordinary job," Goodell said.A streaming-only Super Bowl?It is difficult to keep up with all the ways to watch NFL games in 2023. But while fans have come to accept that some regular-season games will be on premium streaming services or other networks, there was an expectation that all playoff games could be acce sed via cable channels like ABC, ESPN, CBS, Fox and NBC.That wasn't the case in 2024. The NFL put the Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game exclusively on NBC streaming platform Peacock, meaning fans without it had to sign up to watch the game. The decision, and , was widely criticized.Goodell defended the decision to put the game on Peacock, saying that fans are moving progre sively toward more streaming services and that the league has to "reach our fans there." He highlighted the Peacock game as out-drawing the game from the same window in 2023 and praised the production of the game.In addition, he said it reduced the average age of the audience by 10 years."Youth audiences are going to those platforms and those apps, and we have to make sure our content is there. We still have over 90% of our games on free television. No other league, no other sports comes close to that," Goodell said.Goodell then discu Lane Johnson Jersey sed how in the 1980s, it was viewed as controversial to move NFL games to ESPN, which was not a basic cable channel like ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC. He also said that over the past year, games on Amazon Prime, now the exclusive home of "Thursday Night Football," saw a 24 percent ratings increase and that putting the "Sunday Ticket" package on YouTube also led to a ma sive jump in subscribers."We have to fish where the fish are," Goodell said. "Our fans are on these platforms, our fans want to acce s them. The technology is extraordinary. You can do things on some of these platforms that you can't do on the linear platform. So for us, it's part of the future. I don't know where it goes from here. But we're going to continue to reach our fans where they are with the best po sible production, the best po sible technology."Does that mean a streaming-exclusive Super Bowl is coming down the line?"Certainly not in my time," Goodell said.