After months of speculation on how many games Steelers All-Pro running back Le’Veon Bell would be suspended after his DUI arrest last August, the news broke earlier this morning that <a href=”http://www.pittsburghsportingnews.com/leveon-bell-suspended-three-games/21435″>Bell would miss the first three games of the 2015 season</a>. Though not exactly shocking news, it’s a blow to a team that will have to start the season without arguably the best running back in the NFL today.
When you couple the announcement with the news of LaGarrette Blount’s one game suspension for his role in the Bell DUI arrest, many fans are more than a little peeved by the perceived hypocrisy of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell when it comes to his arbitrary approach to suspensions.
After all, this is the same person who looked at a video of Ray Rice in which he slugged his fiance with a brutal punch and then dragged her out of an elevator — while unconscious — and felt that warranted Rice a two-game suspension.
Ok, I’m pounding this out in my brain: attack a woman brutally (with video evidence provided) and get two games; get a DUI with no previous criminal history and get three? Am I missing something here?
In Roger Goodell’s NFL, where the lines of morality, integrity and punishment are seemingly all blurred, this is too often par for the course.
Let me be clear, I don’t think Bell or Blount should have been suspended by the league at all. This is not because of my views on the use of or laws regarding marijuana and it is not because I don’t believe that breaking the law should not be punished; it absolutely should be. But isn’t that what the legal system is for?
Both Blount and Bell were arrested and charged with crimes. In both cases, they were adjudicated in a court of law. Specific to Bell, as a first time DUI offender, he was admitted into a program that would allow him to serve 15 months of probation and ultimately leave that program with a clean record. He was treated the same as any other first time DUI offender in Pennsylvania, and will have to pay his dues under the law.
Bell, who by all accounts is a good citizen with no criminal history at 23-years old, is being held accountable and rightfully punished for breaking the law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Should that not be enough?
When it comes to first-time offenders of misdemeanor crimes, I believe it is.
I hope two things stick out there: one, first-time offender; two, misdemeanor offenses. If you get in trouble multiple times, or are charged with more serious crimes, then I believe the league has much more of a reason to step in and levy additional punishments beyond the legal system.
In the case of Bell and Blount, that would mean we would not have to speculate about who might being playing at running back for the Steelers and Patriots in a possible week one matchup to kick off the 2015 season.
Instead, Bell and Blount will be forced to watch from the sidelines courtesy of a league mandated dog and pony show where doling out arbitrary punishments presents the facade that the NFL won’t tolerate such heinous acts by its players.
Considering the league’s history of allowing wife beaters, dog murderers, and accomplices to murder (alleged) to get second chances, I guess some of us have odd definitions of what is heinous.
What exactly is being accomplished by suspending players like Bell and Blount for first time offenses that most rational people would consider to be less serious misdemeanor level crimes? I won’t expect to get an acceptable answer from the league.
Then again, we’ve come to expect that from Goodell and the NFL.
Photo credit: NBC Sports
