Somewhere along the line, it almost became commonplace for football players, whether in high school, college or the NFL, to commit violent crimes against women.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had the opportunity on Thursday to send a major message to the players wearing “The Shield” on Thursday and instead acted like a coward similar to Ray Rice acting like a coward when he beat his then fiancée unconscious and was caught on film dragging her body out of an elevator by the feet.
By Goodell issuing only a two-game suspension to Rice, in essence he is acting like a coward as well.
Now I hate to come down on Goodell solely as the NFLPA and even the Baltimore Ravens should have been involved sending a message that violence against women is a crime that has to stop in their league.
They didn’t do that.
Rice gets two games for beating the hell out of his wife, while Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon gets a season for smoking pot?
Now by no means am I suggesting that Gordon should not go unpunished. He should know the rules and he willingly broke them and should suffer the consequences. But when you compare the two crimes, you have to be completely heartless to not feel that Rice is a worse human being for the crime he committed, even if it was his first offense.
The two games Rice got is also the same punishment that Goodell gave Detroit’s Mikel Leshoure in 2012 for a pair of marijuana arrests, and the same suspension he gave New Orleans’ Will Smith in 2011 for taking a banned diuretic.
But by just comparing the situations side by side, it is apparent that the NFL really doesn’t take violence against women seriously, whether it be rape, sexual assault or battery. That’s a shame because it should be viewed as serious as anything else some of these players get away with.
Unfortunately it is not and that is because of the fans.
As long as the fans keep buying the jerseys, the Red Zone package, the Sunday Ticket, etc. the NFL is not taking a hit in the wallet. As long as they are a money making cash cow, Goodell or any other commissioner can really keep turning the other cheek and issuing out slaps on the wrist.
I’ve also heard many Steelers fans complaining that the NFL favors the Ravens over the Steelers and that is just not the case here.
The Steelers are just as much a part of the problem.
Just in the past few years we have seen Ben Roethlisberger, James Harrison, Cedrick Wilson and Chris Rainey all involved in alleged crimes against women.
At least Rice did get something. Harrison admittedly beat on the mother of his child and received no suspension from the team or the league, nor a fine.
No, there is no favoritism going on here at all. The guys wearing black and gold have been just as big of a problem around the league as guys on any other team.
The problem lies with most of these football players feeling they are invincible and having a spineless commissioner to slap their wrist after they beat up on women.
Violence against women is something that is not tolerable in any workplace. It should be the same in the NFL.
If I were caught on camera doing what Rice did, you can bet every media outlet I work for would cut ties with me immediately. The same would go for any of my relatives, neighbors or friends in their fields of work.
Yet that isn’t the case when it comes to football players for some reason.
Just in the past few months we have seen crimes against women involving Rice, Carolina defensive end Greg Hardy and a couple of players at the University of Texas. Throw in disturbing situations at Notre Dame, Florida State, Steubenville High School and countless of other institutions around the nation and it is clear that we have a major problem.
Goodell could have taken a major step in helping prevent some of these crimes against women in the future but acted as much of a coward as the guys who decided to beat on women.
Suspensions for drug offenses are longer.
Roethlisberger got six games (reduced to four) and was never charged with a crime. But he hammered Roethlisberger anyway because he didn’t like the way those accusations reflected on the NFL. Big Ben got everything he deserved, but Goodell should have done something similar here and he failed miserably.
After this lack of punishment, what are we telling our young men in this world? That it is ok to beat on women?
More importantly, what are we telling women? That it is now acceptable that they are to be made targets for much stronger and bigger football players to beat on?
At the end of the day, a man should not be able hurt a woman and get away with it.
Yet that isn’t the case on Goodell’s watch.
Maybe I was raised better than that, but at the end of the day these are crimes that should simply not be tolerated and should be punished more severely.
Goodell had that opportunity and dropped the ball in a big way.
Photo Credit: Nam Y. Huh/The Associated Press
