Should he stay or should he go?

• And, no, we’re not referring to retiring baseball commissioner Bud Selig being in Seattle last night, the place where he “spirited away” his major league baseball franchise all those many years ago. We are talking about the possible Ray Rice cover-up and the fallout from it. If you are of a certain generation – in other words, old – you learned the lesson long ago the cover-up is usually what causes the most damage, not the act itself. It’s just another thing for which we can thank Richard Nixon and his band of nattering nabobs. However, Roger Goodell must not have been in class the day that lesson was taught. Wouldn’t you think Goodell, the NFL commissioner, would have made sure of his facts before he went before the NFL nation this week and said no one in his office had seen the elevator video prior to Rice’s suspension being handed down? After all, that information made his administration look pretty inept, so, at the very least, it better have been correct. But it doesn’t seem to have been. The Associated Press published a pretty well-sourced story yesterday with a law enforcement source saying he passed the DVD onto the NFL and someone in the league office acknowledged having watched it. OK. So yesterday afternoon and this morning, the airwaves and Internet and newspapers are full of folks either calling for Goodell’s head or his heart, whatever seems more painful . Right now, it seems as if they may just get their wish. But I’m not sure. Goodell is a prime reason why the NFL owners are, to quote Hyman Roth, bigger than U.S. Steel. So they will have to balance the tarnish the league’s brand is receiving against Goodell’s utility to them. It may be close. Ray Rice’s suspension? It seems to have been overshadowed by the revelations concerning the video – and the conversations about it. Just yesterday down the road in the Bay Area, where the 49ers have done nothing concerning one of their players who has been arrested and charged with a domestic violence crime, the team suspended their radio announcer , Ted Robinson, for saying something stupid about it. Let me get this right. The player who is accused of an illegal violent act against another human being is still practicing and playing as if nothing happened. But someone who said something the team deemed inappropriate and insensitive (and, yes, it was both) is suspended – for the same length of time Rice was originally suspended after obviously knocking out his fiancée. Just wanted to make sure I had that correct.

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• WSU: The Cougars are preparing for Portland State this week, hoping their running game will make more of an appearance than it has thus far this season. That’s the thrust of Jacob Thorpe’s story in today’s S-R. Jacob also was on TV yesterday and shares the video , held a live chat and shares part of that , and shares links and more in today’s post . … Who is going to win this weekend around the conference? There is a lot of consensus among the ESPN.com Pac-12 blog crew. … There is also a mailbag and, from another source, a conference team-by-team ranking .

• EWU: I’ve rarely heard a coach say a bye comes at the wrong time – once, I think, back in the mid-‘90s – so it’s no surprise Beau Baldwin thinks the Eagles’ bye this week is fortuitous. However, as Jim Allen explains in this Big Sky notebook , he’s got good reasons.

• Idaho: The Vandals feel pretty good about the way they played in their opener, but with Western Michigan coming to Moscow this Saturday, it’s time to look ahead. John Blanchette has two blog posts, one with video of Matt Linehan’s comments and another with the team’s thoughts about Saturday’s game.

• Preps: There should be quite a few prep stories today, what with it being Thursday. Greg Lee has a column and a cross country preview. There are his game picks with Sam Adams and more. I know, because I looked at the printed version. But I can’t find the stories on-line. There is some sort of glitch. Sorry. We’ll try to pass them on tomorrow if they become available. … We can pass along Bill Pierce’s blog post on the history of football leagues in the Spokane area.

• Seahawks: Well, that didn’t last long. Earl Thomas is no longer the Hawks’ punt returner . Pete Carroll has his reasons , some of which he shared with the media yesterday. I’m sure there were others he shared with Thomas as well. … Why not let Richard Sherman do it? After all, he’s not getting the ball through interceptions. (I’m kidding, of course.) … The Goodell mess is also fodder for the Seattle-area columnists . Just about everyone weighed in. And Carroll talked with his team about the core issue here, domestic violence. … Up this week is the San Diego Chargers , the team Russell Wilson’s father once played for in the preseason. … The Hawks are pretty healthy . … The offense is working pretty well , too.

• Mariners: We’re trying to ignore the past couple nights. Both losses to the Astros. Both losses when a win would have put the M’s back into the wild-card lead. Last night it was combination of suspect pitching, suspect defense and suspect hitting. That’s why, I suspect, manager Lloyd McClendon blamed everyone, including himself , for the 5-2 defeat . … As we said up top, Selig was in town , making his under-the-radar farewell tour (he’s no Derek Jeter). Just seeing him is enough to open old wounds for those of us who remember the Pilots. (My recollections come mainly from “Ball Four,” still the best baseball book ever written.)

• Sounders: It’s time to replace the CenturyLink turf . At least the Sounders feel that way. No one knows how the Seahawks feel.

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• Really, I thought it was Wednesday. It’s not. It’s Thursday. I lost a day somehow. I’ll have to borrow my buddy Marty’s DeLorean and get it back. Until later …