When NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell took office with a pledge to work hard on improving the character of the league, I applauded him for it. While it may be a minority or players giving the rest a bad name (depending who you talk to), the perceived character level of NFL players was, and is, somewhere between street punk and abusive spouse.

When Goodell came down hard and fast on the likes of Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones, Chris Henry, Jared Allen, and Tank Johnson – regardless of status in the legal process – he was well on his way to making a difference.

The teams started to take notice, too. The Chicago Bears took a stand and waived Tank Johnson. When Dolphins’ defensive lineman Fred Evans was arrested and charged with Battery, it didn’t take long for Miami to release him. The same goes for former Raider defensive end Bryant McNeal.

Then Reuben Droughns was suspended, and Joey Porter fined. It sure seemed as though Goodell meant what he said and that he has a stainless steel backbone – and then came Michael Vick.

In all honesty, Vick is the first real test of Goodell’s personal conduct policy. Will the league enforce the policy with the same evenhandedness and strict adherence to the framework as with the players who are not, for lack of a better term, NFL superstars?

No rule can be universally respected or maintained if it is not universally enforced. If Goodell allows a double standard for players who put butts in seats and sell jerseys, he will undermine the very heart of his commissionership to date. As a teacher, I can tell you that I would lose the entire class if I entertained preferential treatment of a certain group of teachers. The same goes for the NFL and Commissioner Goodell.

Simply put, he can’t afford to fracture what is already geared up to represent a significant portion of his legacy.

There was no talk of waiting for the legal process to run its course before the aforementioned players were handed their disciplinary sentences, and changing horses midstream at this point can do nothing but reduce or altogether eliminate the effectiveness of the personal conduct policy.

Effective discipline is time-sensitive. It doesn’t mean as much or have the same impact if the sentence is handed down so long after the violation that nobody really remembers what was done wrong in the first place.

I realize that the judicial system is bound to the precept of “innocent until proven guilty,” but when a player has clearly brought such embarrassment to and besmirched the reputation of the entire league, disciplinary action is required – not 9 months from now, but within the following couple of weeks.

Atlanta Falcons’ owner Arthur Blank said Thursday that the team is committed to doing the “right thing,” whatever that may be. Rumors and speculation on Friday leans toward Vick getting a “leave of absence” for the 2007 season, ostensibly to participate in his own defense. Of course, these rumors come quickly on the heels of an overnight straw poll that revealed more than 45% of Atlanta-area residents are in favor of handing Vick an immediate suspension.

And those 45% are right. The more the league and/or the Falcons deliberate or defer the decision, the more it looks like there is a double-standard – and as I mentioned before, a double-standard can destroy the house that Roger Goodell was trying to build.

Is he still trying to build it? Only his backbone can answer that question, and we haven’t seen a lot of it since the Vick indictment broke.