Ethan Westbrooks is this rookie for the St. Louis Rams that got the motivation to play for the NFL by getting a face tattoo. His logic was that with the face tattoo, he could never, ever get a normal job—pretty much forcing him to man up, beef up, and shoot for a football career. And he is most certainly right; the NFL is not a normal job---because it has such a blurred line as to what is considered wrong, what is considered right, what is considered fair, and what is considered a fireable offense. Welcome to the job that employs convicts, women beaters, drug addicts, rapists, dog-killers, assault weapon owners, and other hoodlums without taking an extra breath. In this job, no matter what awful society-threatening activities you commit off the field, as long as you produce on the field it’s all okay.
But we’ve reached a point that even the biggest football fans are starting to cringe.
The NFL is in a bit of trouble.
Because it has done absolutely everything wrong in the past few weeks, and it’s now opening the doors to other issues that up until now was secretly plaguing the league.
The Ray Rice ordeal has been an absolute disaster from start to the eventual finish. And everyone involved is totally in the wrong here. The Ravens were absolutely disgusting in their stupid pep rally for the domestic abuser. The Ravens fans are rather disgusting in forgiving him so quickly, still wearing his jersey, and nearly making him out to become some sort of victim in all this. Ray Rice sunk to a level that very few men would ever find themselves (although apparently in recent statistics, some would debate this) in as he not only struck his fiancée (twice) but also spit on her in the process, before treating her body like a sack of potatoes. The justice system was horrifically wrong in pretty much giving him a slap on the wrists for the incident which could have turned out to be much worse if she had landed incorrectly. ESPN should have fired Stephen A. Smith for suggesting that the victim provoked and slightly deserved the beating. Paul George and some of the other asinine athlete Tweeters are in the wrong for also claiming the same thing.
Before I dwell on the main culprit for all this, let me point out that no matter what she says, what she does, or what she threatens to do, you as a man should never, ever, ever, ever strike your woman, or any woman for that matter. It is as simple as that. We are not in the caveman days. Grow the f’ up, America.
And point #2, if anyone brings up race in this debate, you need to go home. This is not a white/black issue, this is a domestic abuse issue that is bringing light on one of the sadder epidemics occurring in the country.
But the National Football League and Roger Goodell, you messed this up royally in every possible conceivable way.
I mean seriously: Every. Single. Way.
The first video alone should have led to a much lengthier suspension than just two games. At least a season. Rice treated his fiancée like a heavy bag of garbage as he was dragging her along as opposed to asking for any type of help to remedy the situation. That first video should have been evidence enough that at that point he has little respect for human beings. You just don’t do that to anybody. We all knew what had happened on that elevator. Nonetheless, the NFL gives him two games. Josh Gordon caught with weed? An entire year. Granted he is a repeat offender, but it wasn’t performance-enhancing, isn’t anything that can effect anybody. He didn’t hurt anybody. One year.
And only God knows how much more lenient the punishment would be if he was playing for Denver or New England as opposed to Cleveland---because now Wes Welker after getting busted for illegal drugs suddenly gets to play again as the NFL approved a new deal with the player’s union and immediately reinstated the Broncos star. But no hope for Gordon. He gets 10 games, Welker comes back after getting in trouble for the same exact offense, and Ray Rice originally got two games.Must be good to be part of a successful franchise, eh?
Then of course there’s the NFL’s newest punishment for domestic abuse: 6 games. Really? Tormenting your significant other with mental and physical pain warrants you only missing 6 games? At this point it was realized that the NFL didn’t get it. Yes the other leagues have their players with domestic abuse problems: but the NFL hands-down has the biggest staff of delinquents, and as the league with the most public case of domestic violence, should have made a firm example on how to handle this. Yet we have two players (one for the 49ers with Kapernick, and the other for the Panthers with Newton) still playing despite being enamored in their own domestic abuse case. We have an announcer for San Francisco suspended for COMMENTS, while the ACTUAL ABUSER IS STILL PLAYING.
Hold on, the fun continues.
Now we have the second video come out, which was far more graphic than people imagined, and suddenly the Ravens cut Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely. This caused even more disaster because now people are trying to figure out why suddenly the punishment increased tenfold when we all knew what had happened. Ray Rice had already (sort of) mentioned what he did during the “pep rally” yet somehow this video made the NFL rethink the punishment. And this was after Roger Goodell lobbied and explained and argued his reasoning behind the original suspension.
Now….the question is…did the NFL have the tape? Goodell says no, and the flurry of anger continues.
How on earth could TMZ have the footage, and the NFL does not? How can the multi-billion dollar industry not be able to obtain the footage of a simple elevator exchange? How is it that it seems like TMZ was more willing to reveal the truth than the league employing the culprit? And now with the investigators claiming that the NFL had the tape back in April, everything smells like bullcrap. Goodell says he didn’t have the tape, and even went as far as to say that Rice never told him the actual story as to what happened on that fateful night. Both are obvious lies.
Wait, there’s more….
Now Goodell starts up an independent report---that is being overseen by two owners that have deep ties with the commissioner that’s already in trouble. This entire thing is a pure mess. So now we have controversial decisions, dumbfounded decisions, and even more player violence occurring at the same time with Adrian Peterson suddenly being wanted for beating one of his kids with a switch many, many times. What you see here is a horrifically botched attempt at a cover-up and hordes of athletes continuing to operate without much regard for others. The NFL is in pure moral decay, and the entire front office has to go.
Roger Goodell has to go, plain and simple.
He had one job. ONE JOB. The NFL was already the biggest thing in American sports by far. Surely the world prefers its soccer, baseball, and basketball, but in the US of A football was reigning supreme. The 2000s has made it excruciatingly easy to follow your sports teams no matter what league you follow. MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, and even the WNBA has seen a vast increase in fame and fortune thanks to evolving technology, thanks to sports becoming a more desirable and required escape, and because the talent level amongst all sports has become more streamlined so even lower-market and lesser-known teams like the Florida Marlins, Chicago White Sox, San Antonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Columbus Crew winning the championships within the past 15 years. And even then, thanks to the influx of sports in the American mainstream, teams like the Spurs are becoming well-known even if they come from more obscure cities.
GOODELL YOU HAD ONE JOB: KEEP THE BOAT AFLOAT. Ride the wave of success and prevent it from crashing.
All he had to do was improve the player conduct that was getting rather out of hand in the early 2000s. However we have seen no improvement whatsoever and not just on the player conduct, but we are seeing a commissioner that overplays his hand to a point of diminishing the overall product. The BountyGate Scandal happened, the referees were locked out, the players at one point were locked out and nearly sacrificed part of the season, we have seen the issues of concussions reach new levels because of the increase in suicides and post-traumatic cases long after the football careers were over, and then the overall attitude of the league remained stuck in the 20th century.
We have Michael Sam perform quite well in the preseason, even taking in a few sacks (and taking out Johnny Football) in the process. Now, it is easy to say that I am jumping to conclusions as to his sexual orientation factoring in to why he didn’t get the job----but then there’s the Tim Tebow story.
Tim Tebow is the ultimate example as to why the NFL hasn’t grown up or evolved with the times. This man was a proven winner, the perfect breath of fresh air for the league. He was the Mary Poppins of the NFL, couldn’t do anything morally wrong. Constantly remained positive, never had a bad bone in his body, and still managed to lead a less-than-decent Denver Broncos team to the playoffs despite having rookie numbers and even beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the postseason. His numbers were on par with most rookies that would become great quarterbacks, yet after one not-even-full season he was gone. Picked up by the Jets as a joke, picked up by the Patriots also as a joke, and now is doing Good Morning America not being able to fulfill his actual dream because he has been blackballed by the entire league.
So we hate the calm, religious, and anger-free Tim Tebow to a point of driving him away, yet we forgive and forget the crimes of the other NFL hoodlums? The culture of the NFL is very contradictory, as it doesn’t want to be known as a league that has become softer yet at the same time introduce dozens of rules that reduce players of all their individualism into mere money-making drones. Roger Goodell has created all these limitations to the way players play, celebrate, tackle, defend, and even unveil emotion and this has done little to nothing to fan the flames of player misbehavior.
Within this decade, we have seen terrible replacement referees with superior instant replay technology ruin entire games, we have seen a terrible murder-suicide happen in front of an NFL stadium, we nearly saw the cancelling of a football season, an inconsistent drug policy, an inconsistent celebrating policy (Lambeau Leap still allowed….), and just a decrease in quality coming from the overall product of the league. While it is still the #1 sport in America, its firm grip on the nation’s sports pulse is beginning to waver a little.
Originally, this article was going to dwell upon how the NFL will still survive this and will maintain its position as the top entertainment billing in television. Originally, I was going to put down that the fans will forgive nonetheless and we will still be moving on despite the awfulness of the current scenario because the NFL sells hope, as a miniscule 16-game season gives every fanbase the mentality that there is a chance. But as more and more complications mount as I type this, I am not sure if the NFL can recover from this without any bruises.
The current NFL has taken too many punches. And do remember that being on top of the mountain never lasts forever. Once upon a time MLB was king. Once upon a time boxing was king. If the NFL wants to keep being #1 in popularity and revenue (its lead over baseball is dwindling) it needs to do one major thing:
Get rid of Roger Goodell. His time is up.
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