GOODROW CAN’T ESCAPE TRUMP Beleaguered Green owner squibs kickoff to NFFA Media Days

Green QB Patrick Mahomes was at a loss to answer questions at NFFA Media Days about the FBI's recent search of team owner Dave Goodrow's home and nightclub.

By Ariel-Mutha Tafoya

FSN Sports

Village Green chairman Dave Goodrow may have intended to kick off the league’s vaunted Media Days event by discussing his team’s prospects for the upcoming season. Instead, he found himself bombarded with reporters’ questions about his involvement with Donald Trump, who formerly owned a minority interest in the Green.

For Goodrow’s team, the timing of Media Days could not have been more inopportune. On Tuesday, when FBI agents conducted a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, they also executed warrants on Goodrow’s Hillsboro Village home and his nightclub, the Goodrow-a-Go-Go. Sources within the Bureau, who spoke with FSN on condition of anonymity, said that agents hauled away numerous boxes of documents from both of the Nashville searches. One box, they said, appeared to include three Dead Lombardi trophies belonging to Ballers owner Mojo D. Another box was filled with publicity photos of exotic dancers seeking jobs at “The Go-Go.” A third box, labeled “Tax Documents,” appeared to be filled with loose receipts from liquor stores and nail salons.

Though agents had not completed a review of the seized records as of Thursday, they reported one previously undisclosed bit of information. In early 2020, the documents showed, a cash-strapped Trump offered to sell his Florida resort to the Green’s owner, who would rename it Mar-a-Goodrow. Negotiations apparently broke down over Goodrow’s insistence that Trump not be allowed to live on the property and that his gold-plated toilet be uninstalled and sent to the Smithsonian.

Seized financial documents also indicated that, during his ownership tenure with the Green, Trump had placed a valuation of $2 trillion on the franchise, dwarfing the value of other professional sports organizations. Even after Trump sold his shares, Goodrow used the artificially inflated valuation to obtain lines of credit he accessed to buy up prime downtown, Midtown and SoBro real estate in Nashville. “Essentially,” said New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who is prosecuting Trump for alleged financial crimes, “it appears that Goodrow took advantage of Trump’s fraud to run his archrival Mojo D out of his team’s last three locations by buying up all the land around him.” It was not yet clear, James added, whether Goodrow’s actions may have constituted a crime.

In New York City on Wednesday, Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment whenever he was asked a question about his involvement with the Green.

“The real crime was what they did to a tremendous owner and American like Dave Goodrow,” Trump tweeted after his grand jury appearance. “I know that he will be loyal to the man who made him a champion — me — and will not participate in the Deep State and Elite Media witch hunt that is being waged on MAGA Patriots right now.”

Goodrow, who has tried to distance himself from Trump since buying out his former partner, did not initially appear before the media on Thursday, leaving the presentation to Coach Stuart Smalley and QB Pat Mahomes. Neither could escape a volley of reporters’ questions about the team’s owner and Trump.

“On a scale of 1 to 1,000, how much of a distraction is Goodrow’s entanglement with Trump going to be for the Green this year?” asked longtime beat writer Woody Larry, who reminded everyone that he is a combat veteran. “Will it haunt you the way Vietnam haunted LBJ?”

ESPN analyst Troy Fakeman asked Mahomes, “Are you troubled to learn that the Green are valued at $2 trillion but you only got paid a relative pittance?”

“Do you think Goodrow will go to jail?” asked local journalist Joe Biddle.

“You’re good enough and smart enough and people like you,” said Fox Sports’ Skip Clueless to Smalley, “but are you good enough and smart enough to coach the team through this crisis?”

After Smalley and Mahomes struggled to answer questions for nearly an hour, Goodrow stunned reporters by approaching the podium dressed in an outfit, complete with buffalo-horn headdress, like that worn by the so-called Q-Shaman inside the US Capitol on January 6. As he sauntered in, playing air guitar, “Helter Skelter” blared over the PA system.

“Too soon, bitches?” said the Green owner, amid audible gasps from around the room. “You thought this was all going to be businesslike? Welcome to the NFFA. I’d be happy to take any of your questions now, but it looks like we’re out of time and I’m out of patience. See you on the field!”

Goodrow and Woodrow in happier times.

With that, the media availability ended abruptly. Hours after the event, FSN learned that Goodrow had not appeared at Media Days after all. Instead, reporters were punked by his twin brother, Woodrow, a Nashville-based accountant and professional blackjack player who has been known to pass himself off as his famous older (by three minutes) sibling. 

“He sure fooled me,” Smalley said. “But it’s hard to tell them apart except for Dave’s ‘Butterflies Are Free’ tattoo, which is normally covered up except when he’s partying.”