It took shocking video footage of domestic abuse to get the NFL to act appropriately. Does the league need a new man in charge to get player discipline right?
Every October, the NFL runs National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an initiative you’ve probably noticed due to the player’s kits and the fields being swathed in pink for the month.
It is a noble idea – though many questions remain about just how much money the initiative raises for the charities involved – but last year it highlighted one of the many flaws in the NFL’s disciplinary style.
Brandon Marshall broke ranks last October, wearing green shoes to highlight Mental Health Awareness Week, a charity he supports after being diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder in 2011. The Chicago Bears player wore the special shoes on October 10, and was fined $10,500 on October 15 for breaking the ‘Uniform and Equipment’ code.
When it wants to, the NFL can crack down hard and fast. Just look at the list of fines for the current season. Excessive profanity will cost $11,025 (for a first offence) while wearing the wrong chin strap will cost almost $9,000.
All these, of course, relate to on-field issues but when it comes to off-field matters, the policy, if you can call it that, is far more lenient, even for extremely egregious actions, yet extremely harsh for other, far more minor offences.
Take drug use. Be it a joint or a performance enhancer, the first offence is generally a four-game ban, second offence is a six-game ban and the third is a year-long ban.
That is the fate that befell Cleveland’s Josh Gordon, whose third strike in August, this time for a tiny amount of marijuana in his system, sees him sit out the entire season, at a cost of $1.4m dollars as you don’t get paid unless you play in the NFL. It is reported he is spending the rest of 2014 selling cars to make ends meet.
If Gordon’s ban was the joint longest imposed in the off-season, it was one of the shortest that drew the most controversy. Super Bowl-winning running back Ray Rice was arrested on February 15 and four days later, TMZ released video of him dragging then fiancé Janay Palmer out of a lift while she appeared to be unconscious. On March 27, Baltimore Ravens star Rice was charged with third degree assault on Palmer. They married the next day and by May the charges had been resolved after Rice entered a year-long programme of treatment.
On July 24, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (above) announced that Rice would get a two-game ban for his actions. In subsequent days Goodell would defend his actions, saying he consulted with Rice and Palmer and that “It’s important to understand this is a young man who made a terrible mistake. We’re very confident that this young man understands what he needs to do to move forward”.
All through August pressure grew on Goodell and the NFL to come down harder on players who committed domestic violence and on August 28 a new domestic violence policy was issued to players, with a six-game ban for a first offence followed by a lifetime ban if found guilty again.
Without mentioning Rice, Goodell said: “I didn’t get it right. Simply put, we have to do better. And we will.”
So, with Rice sitting out the Ravens’ opening game defeat to the Bengals, he was just one game away from returning when TMZ released video from inside the lift yesterday, showing the blow Rice gave Palmer. It is a truly shocking sight, as domestic violence is one of the most hidden of all crimes.
Immediately the story erupted again and by the end of the day, the Ravens had terminated their contract with Rice. His prospects of returning to the league any time soon look slim to non-existent.
The way this entire thing has played out is troubling. We knew Rice had struck his wife but it took the world seeing it for him to be kicked out of the sport. And even then, it was his employers who took the action, not the game’s administrators, who followed up minutes later with an indefinite ban for Rice.
And before you award any plaudits to the Ravens for taking the lead, they had this tweet on their account until yesterday. If you’ve seen the video, you’ll know how scandalous that this stayed posted for three months.
Nobody comes out of this looking well, and the NFL still needs to adjudicate fully on Rice’s future.
Domestic violence is a major problem in the NFL. The excellent fivethirtyeight worked out that while the percentage of violent crimes that men are arrested for in the US that are classed as domestic violence is 22 per cent, the NFL rate is 48 per cent and 83 NFL players have been arrested for domestic abuse since 2000.
While the NFL can’t control its players 24/7, it can be seen to take a stand when an employee commits such an appalling offence.
The previously mentioned Marshall, so harshly and swiftly punished for his shoes, was banned for three games (ultimately he only served one) for domestic violence in 2008 and he has a history of altercations with fiancés and spouses. He remains one of the league’s biggest stars.
The troubling, but useful, resource that is spotrac.com’s NFL fine tracker allows you to see what NFL players are currently suspended and why. There is a proliferation of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and Substance Abuse issues that should be a worry to any professional sport but when matters reach the most serious levels, like domestic abuse or murder, then extraordinary action needs to be taken.
The new six-game ban for a first offence, under which San Francisco’s Ray McDonald already faces being the first player to be banned, still seems too lenient if the NFL really wants to deter players from committing that terrible crime and punish those that do accordingly.
True, crime in America is not the NFL’s responsibility, and they merely reflect the wider society from which they draw their players. But, as a series of companies who profit massively from the game, the top brass have a responsibility to show that they won’t stand for behaviour that clearly crosses a line.
Goodell seems to be floundering to cope with the plethora of issues his league throws up and while the steps they took to reduce incidences of concussion are to be applauded, they still have huge strides to make in the area of player behaviour off the field.
Questions are now being asked, rightly, about the Commissioner’s future and whether he is the man to lead this new hard line. The NBA’s new head honcho Adam Silver has been lauded for his swift and decisive role in ending Roger Sterling’s ownership of the LA Clippers. Perhaps a similarly effective new broom is needed to begin the task of cleaning up the NFL.
It is a big job, but a repeat of the Rice case cannot be allowed to happen.
