(Bloomberg) — It's becoming a time-worn script. Company gets in trouble. Public gets upset. Company hires former head of three-letter agency or former prosecutor to get to the bottom of said trouble in thick report. Public forgives.

The National Football League's decision to hire former FBI Director Robert Mueller to examine its handling of a player's domestic violence case mimics companies such as General Motors Co. and BP Plc in hiring high-profile outsiders to blunt criticism by airing their dirty laundry, said James Post, a professor at Boston University School of Management.

"These cases have become full-employment pools for former FBI officials," he said in an interview. "The pattern has become familiar. There's getting to be a kind of public fatigue as we've seen this play run out again and again."

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