Brett Katz
As the NFL season comes down to its the uglier side of the league. With Braylon Edwards, the New York Jets wide receiver pleading no contest to assault charges stemming from a bar fight, and surely facing a one-game suspension (most likely next season) we are distracted from the game on the field to focus on the mayhem off of it. This season has been filled with disciplinary turmoil, ranging from Michael Vick’s return to the league after serving two years in prison on dog fighting charges, to Donte Stallworth’s one-year suspension and thirty-day prison sentence for felony DUI vehicular manslaughter. This was the season of Marshawn Lynch, who was suspended four games for both a hit-and-run accident and a weapons charge in which police found a 9 mm handgun in a backpack in his trunk. And this was the season of Shawne Merriman, and Tom Cable, neither of whom were charged with a crime or suspended for any period of time despite allegations of spousal/girlfriend abuse. By and large most people who committed acts in contravention of the personal conduct policy were suspended. However, the two people involved with the most public examples of spousal/girlfriend abuse were not suspended and faced no discipline. What all this adds up to is the underlying question about integrity, and whether the league loses some of it when it does fail to punish those who deserve to be?
As we approach the close of the season, the league can only hope to put many of these issues behind them and begin to hope that its personal conduct policy will eventually phase out much of this behavior. The question though is what behavior it is that the league is actively seeking to eliminate. The message being sent by the league in punishing Vick, Stallworth, Lynch, and presumably Edwards is that the league wants to be tough on players, and that the right to play is not coextensive with legal rights. This is a novel idea, and one worthy of praise, however the failure is in the execution. By not punishing players (and coaches) for violence against women, the league fails to police one of the more pressing issues. I admit, I have no knowledge about the rate at which domestic violence occurs among professional football players, it may be impossible to measure for sure, but the perception among fans is that those numbers are high. Shouldn’t the public perception be enough to drive the league to work harder to prevent this type of behavior? If the league was concerned about PETA and would impose such a heavy suspension against Vick in fear of protest and public damnation, how could the league not work to curb one type of violent behavior (most) commonly associated with professional athletes. So far, the league has largely ignored this issue, and if they continue to do so, they will begin to lose the integrity they are working so hard to preserve by administering their own system of justice.
Even if police and district attorney’s choose not to file charges, the league is not bound by that decision. The most effective way to curb the behavior may be to be over-inclusive in who they punish. Fines and suspensions for complaints and/or convictions may be the only way to get the message though that violence against women will not be tolerated. The NFL should be proactive about curbing this behavior without the need of public intervention. It should not take a protest by an activist group to alert the league that they need to address it. If the league works hard to curb this kind of behavior perhaps these kinds of incidents won’t overshadow the magic that happens on the field, and this season will be remembered as the season the league got tough on violence against women.
