NFL commissioner Roger Goodell isn't the most popular individual among fans, NFL players and head coaches, often being met with a chorus of boos while appearing at games, including the Super Bowl or announcing picks at the NFL Draft.
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While the Commissioner isn't beloved among many fans of the league, he has all the support he needs from his family, most notably his wife, Jane Skinner Goodell. But Jane Goodell isn't some no-namer who lives in obscurity. She had an impressive media career on TV, and you may have seen her before.
Roger Goodell's Wife Jane Goodell
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Roger Goodell has been married to wife Jane Skinner since 1997 and together the couple have twin daughters who were born in 2001. The Goodell clan resides in Westchester, New York, nearby where Goodell grew up in Bronxville.
Skinner was raised by a wealthy family in Lake Forest, Illinois, and attended Lake Forest High School. Her father, Sam Skinner, served as Secretary of Transportation and White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush.
Similarly, Goodell's own father, Charles Goodell, was a U.S. congressman and senator.
Jane Worked at Fox News
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Skinner herself is a former media member who spent 12 years working for Fox News. She spent time as a news anchor for the network and hosted the show "Happening Now" alongside Jon Scott, as well as "Sunday Best."
Prior to working at Fox, she got her start in the industry in Duluth, Minnesota, where she was a political correspondent for the KBJR television station.
However, she retired in 2001 to take care of their daughters.
In 2020 prior to the Super Bowl, she returned to Fox News' "Bill Hemmer Reports" to promote her new documentary called "A Lifetime of Sundays." The NFL Films documentary showcases the matriarchs of four American football families, per ABC.
"They're the generation of 'we.' They're [not] the generation of 'me' where we're about kind of selfies and talking about ourselves and our accomplishments. They're very much the opposite of that: team, family, and community — that was super refreshing," Goodell said, via Fox News.
Jane's Twitter Controversy
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Skinner came under fire in 2017 after The Wall Street Journal reported on an anonymous secret Twitter account under the pseudonym Jones Smith (@forargument), which frequently clapped back at those slandering Goodell on the platform.
It turned out the account was actually run by Skinner, who admitted to the WSJ that she acted out of love in order to defend her harshly scrutinized husband.
"I'm always bothered when the coverage doesn't provide a complete and accurate picture of a story," Skinner told Sports Illustrated.
The social media account has since been deleted, but one tweet while the account was active responded critically to an ESPN article about the National Anthem protests, writing, "Reads like press release from players' union. You can do better reporting."
Skinner's fake Twitter account also responded to similar critical comments from notable accounts such as NBC's Pro Football Talk. It's certainly not easy being the wife of the commissioner of the National Football League, but her actions on Twitter certainly didn't help ease the criticism of her husband.
Skinner seems to have cooled her jets on coming to the defense of Goodell since the Twitter incident went public, but you can bet your bottom dollar that she'd stand up for him again if need be.
This post was originally published on January 24, 2021.
