In April a commissioner got up in front of the entire sports world and took drastic action to start mending a wrong so horrible it threatened to destroy an entire team. Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling from the NBA for making terribly racist remarks and eventually forced him to sell the team.

In April another commissioner supposedly saw a video of a player doing a terrible act of violence and did nothing. Roger Goodell had his Adam Silver moment and has failed miserably.

Instead of taking swift and appropriate action, Goodell hoped things would go away quietly. He hoped a two-game suspension would appease the sports world – it didn’t. While the two-game suspension was mocked publicly by just about everyone, it seemed as though Goodell would get away with a slap on the wrist for Ray Rice. When the second video appeared just this week of the actual knockout punch Rice delivered to his then fiancée – things got bad.

Today a credible report claimed that the NFL had received the video of Rice knocking out his then fiancée in April – three months prior to any disciplinary action being taken. The NFL has repeatedly denied seeing the video but it seems like the denying game is over. This might be the straw that breaks Goodell’s back. If in fact he did see the video in April and only suspended Rice two games, he will be run out of the NFL’s offices almost immediately.

For Goodell, all of this could have been avoided. One player is not bigger than an entire league. Goodell had his chance to be Adam Silver and could have gone to the podium in April and banned the player for life right then and there. He would have been praised for swift and decisive action. He would have been applauded for his zero-tolerance stance on domestic violence. This whole ordeal would have been over and Goodell would have come out smelling like roses.

Instead for some reason Goodell tried to protect Rice. Goodell is a smart man. He of all people should have known that if he did know more in April and didn’t do anything it would eventually come out…and it looked like it has.

Follow Mike Zoller on Twitter @mikezoller.