The NFL released its owner-approved new personal conduct policy on Wednesday in the latest incremental step toward the league attempting to rebuild its fractured image.
But the NFL Players Association immediately fired back at the updated policy, showing just how far the league has yet to go in cleaning up the disciplinary and credibility crisis that exploded in recent months.
Meanwhile, a new ESPN investigative report cast fresh doubts on commissioner Roger Goodell's leadership.
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NFL owners unanimously approved the new set of rules and procedures. The biggest change is that disciplinary decisions can no longer solely be made by Goodell, whose initial light punishment of domestic-batterer Ray Rice and seemingly ad-hoc methods of determining punishment have been roundly criticized.
The new policy says a committee of nine franchise owners will oversee conduct matters and that a "special counsel" appointed by the league will take the lead on disciplinary matters.
The NFL Players Association was quick to criticize the new conduct policy, however, retaliating with a scathing rebuttal that said the league's "unilateral decision and conduct today is the only thing that has been consistent over the past few months."
An NFL executive denied that claim. A lengthy series of arguments and bickering over the new owner-approved policy is likely to be in store.
In addition, an investigative report by ESPN's Outside the Lines on Wednesday cast new doubt over Goodell's leadership and honesty in handling the NFL's investigation and punishment of Rice. Outside the Lines obtained the 631-page transcript of Rice's appeal hearing in November.
The report makes Goodell's assertions from this autumn -- that the league did all it could to ascertain details of Rice knocking his wife out cold in a casino elevator last February -- look shaky at best.
In a fittingly bureaucratic twist, the NFL also released a summary of its owner-approved conduct policy in flowchart form.
Here, via Deadspin, is Goodell's full memo to owners about the new conduct policy: