NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell publicly addressed New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch's crude past email conversation with late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein being released publicly over the weekend.

Goodell addressed reporters during his annual Super Bowl week news conference and claimed it was too early to discuss whether Tisch would face punishment for the emails, which took place in 2013 and surfaced in the latest tranche of Epstein documents released by the Department of Justice on Friday (January 30).

“You may be getting ahead of yourself,” Goodell said via the New York Post. “I would say that absolutely we are going to look at all of the facts. We are going to look at the context of those and try to understand that. We’ll look at how that falls under the [Personal Conduct] Policy. But I think we take one step at a time. Let’s get the facts first.”

The NFL initially addressed the situation with Tisch less than two hours before Goodell's news conference, releasing a statement claiming it "would look into the matter."

“Listen, we’ll continue to follow any of the facts that come up and we’ll determine whether we open an investigation or not based on those facts," Goodell added.

Tisch, now 76, is shown in emails asking Epstein, who had already had a conviction for procuring a child for prostitution, if a "Ukrainian Girl" was a "pro or civilian" and if another woman described as "Tahitian" named "Emily" was a "working girl," though he claimed the conversations were about "adult women."

“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments,” Tisch said in a statement shared through a Giants spokesperson Friday night via the New York Post. “I did not take him up on any of his invitations and never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.”

At least one email exchange took place during an NFL meeting and Tisch offered Epstein two tickets to his suite for a Giants game, with Epstein reciprocating with an invite to his infamous private Caribbean island. NFL owners are subject to the league's Personal Conduct Policy which states that “owner and club or league management have traditionally been held to a higher standard and will be subject to more significant discipline when violations of the Personal Conduct Policy occur.”

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