The Giants’ John Mara and the Steelers’ Art Rooney II leave a meeting together in Minneapolis in May 2011. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Roger Goodell isn’t on the verge of being disgraced.

He’s already disgraced.

Let’s get that much straight right now, no matter how dulled it might be inside his deluded head.

He’s already lost all but the official title of NFL commissioner.

He’s already done more damage to “the shield,” as he often refers to the league’s iconic logo in the context of protecting its image, than the Saints’ Bountygate, the Patriots’ Spygate and all of James Harrison’s collisions combined, simply by virtue of being a salaciously bad commissioner.

And now a scandalously bad one, on top of that.

This one won’t go away. It just won’t. It can’t.

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

To dispense with this right off the top: Neither the Steelers nor the Browns experienced anything especially transformational at halftime Sunday.

“Nope,” Willie Gay was saying shortly after the home side’s finishing kick prevailed, 30-27, at Heinz Field. “Just another halftime. We came out ready. We were ready to play.”

Brian Hoyer’s view from the locker room down the Hall: “I think people realized there were 30 minutes of football to play, and we just decided as a team to go out and give it everything we got.”

Heady stuff, huh?

And those guys weren’t alone in that sentiment on either end. Player after player was asked about halftime, about a possible speech here or letdown there, and player after player came back Knute-free, narrative-free.

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

They never saw the video. Until Monday, of course, when all of us saw it.

They never saw Ray Rice smash his girlfriend in the face with a left hook — insert all appropriate ‘allegedly’ references, if you must — then drag her out of the elevator, then just plop her there, face down on the floor. The man just stood there and looked at her.

Correction: That’s no man. No real man behaves that way.

It’s cowardly, it’s contemptible and, above all, it’s criminal.

But the emergence of the already infamous TMZ video also could be a blessing, however depressingly disguised. Because this could, if the right people respond the right way, make a real difference not just in the Baltimore backfield — and don’t kid yourself, that’s the impact a lot of folks are no doubt discussing — and not just in the NFL, but in society as a whole.

Or not.

Who am I kidding?

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The Steelers swarm Shaun Suisham after his winning 41-yard field goal Sunday at Heinz Field. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The Steelers’ defense stunk.

I saw it, you saw it, and there’s no denying it.

Those were the Cleveland Bleeping Browns out there. No, check that, those were the Browns with Brian Hoyer at QB not long after carrying clipboards on the South Side, with a third-round rookie back out of Towson named Terrance West filling in for injured Ben Tate, with tight end Jordan Cameron joining Tate on the bench … and still, somehow, that sorry cast came full-throttle at the home side for the final 30 minutes of what wound up a 30-27 victory only through the grace of a buzzer-beating Shaun Suisham field goal.

Until that, the Browns’ second-half drive chart showed the following grizzly progression:

• • 80 yards, touchdown
• • 59 yards, touchdown
• • 75 yards, field goal
• • 51 yards, touchdown
• • 54 yards, punt … but hey, they started at their 6
• • Minus-11 yards, punt
  

Good thing for that last series, too, or the Steelers’ 82nd season opener might have ranked No. 1 on the all-time you’ve-got-to-be-kidding list in light of their 27-3 lead, as well as the 24 points and 288 yards conceded after the intermission.

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