Character Issues

As the draft approaches and players’ draft stock rises and falls (measured in millions of dollars in potential first contracts) character issues have become more and more important in football. Character issues have even bigger implications than just players’ draft position though. The Bills have had to deal with character issues recently with incidents involving Marshawn Lynch, Dante Whitner, and Ko Simpson.

When Roger Goodell took office as commissioner of the NFL and started talking about how character issues would become stressed and players would be held to a higher standard I thought this might be a good thing. This higher standard was to be enforced with suspensions for misconduct. Since then though, I have done a 180 on this issue.

I’m not exactly sure what it was that made me change my mind. It could have been anything from Adam Jones, to Mike Vick, to Tank Johnson, to Cedric Benson, to the unfortunate shootings that have happened (Collier, Taylor, and Williams), to Plax shooting himself. I guess what it comes down to for me is… why football players?

Let’s think for a second what it would be like if others were suspended without pay from their positions were they to misbehave. You can apply this to whatever realm you want, it’s plain not fair. What if musicians were held to this same standard? When was the last time that you heard that a band’s tour was canceled because one of the band members got into an altercation outside of a strip club? When was the last time that a Hollywood actor was suspended from filming a blockbuster (i.e. Hugh Grant, Robert Downey Jr., Lindsay Lohan, etc.)?

It’s almost like we forget what these guys are doing out on a football field. Think in your head about Troy Polamalu literally flying through the air, head first at a quarterback. Players in the NFL get paid lots of money to play a very violent sport. Granted, lots of players are great human beings, serving and giving back to their communities, much like Polamalu. But, why are they held to such a higher standard than other sports figures in popular culture. When did the NFL become the Disney Channel?

Isn’t the reason that we have a legal system in this country to punish people if they break the law? Why do these players deserve to be punished a second time for these infractions? I’ve heard the argument it’s because football players are role models, which is true. But movie stars, rock stars, and baseball players are role models too, how come they don’t face the same consequences for their “bad” behavior? Maybe you think it’s because football players make so much money, in which case read the above sentence again and insert role models with big money makers.

This isn’t to say that I’m against rules and that the NFL should be a gladiatorial free-for-all. I guess I just see so many other ways to enforce “rules” and make the NFL safer, more exciting, and more realistic league. For example, by enforcing steroid use to the same level that the cycling world has.

This post is dedicated to Drewbins. You're my boy Blue, I mean Drew!