NO GOOD GUYS IN SPAT BETWEEN NFL, PLAYERS
Elliott’s defence in abuse allegation centres on undermining alleged victim’s character
The Hatfields and McCoys of pro sports are at it again. On Wednesday, each shot the other’s integrity to pieces, perhaps as never before.
The National Football League, in a statement released by executive VP of communications Joe Lockhart, claimed its players’ union has been spreading “derogatory information to the media” about the victim in the Ezekiel Elliott case.
And further, that the National Football League Players Association lowered itself by resorting to a “shameful” and “common tactic” of trying to discredit the domestic-violence victim.
The NFLPA immediately returned fire, and similarly dispensed with any facade of decorum, in describing the NFL’s statement “issued on behalf of every NFL owner” as a “lie.”
“The NFLPA categorically denies the accusations made in this statement,” the union’s news release said. “We know the league office has a history of being exposed for its lack of credibility. This is another example of the NFL’s hypocrisy on display, and an attempt to create a sideshow to distract from their own failings in dealing with such serious issues. They should be ashamed for stooping to new lows.”
Last Friday, the NFL suspended Elliott — a consensus all-pro running back last season with the Dallas Cowboys — for the first six games of the coming regular season without pay. The league cited “substantial and persuasive evidence” that Elliott committed acts of physical violence, on three separate occasions in a five-day span in July 2016, against his then girlfriend, Tiffany Thompson.
This, even though no criminal charges were filed against Elliott in this case, nor in three cases since early last year of alleged violence or improper sexual touching that have come to light.
Elliott denies wrongdoing in the July 2016 case, the only one that landed him a suspension.
On Tuesday, the NFLPA announced it is appealing the suspension, on Elliott’s behalf.
On Wednesday, the NFL said commissioner Roger Goodell has appointed Harold Henderson to hear the appeal, to be held Aug. 29, according to NFL Network. Henderson has served as one of Goodell’s appeals hearing designees since 2008. Two years ago, Henderson reduced the 10-game suspension of Cowboys pass rusher Greg Hardy to four games. It has become clear Elliott and the NFLPA, as a principal prong of their defence, are indeed questioning the character and credibility of Thompson. Elliott’s lawyers on Friday promised that during “the upcoming weeks and through the appeal, a slew of additional credible and (opposing) evidence will come to light.”
Since Friday, the following has come to light:
Elliott’s lawyers themselves ■ claimed “the NFL’s own experts concluded” that many of Thompson’s self-photographed injuries “predated the week in question and likely occurred during a period of time when Mr. Elliott was not in contact with the accuser,” and furthermore that even NFL investigators found Thompson had lied when she additionally claimed Elliott dragged her out of a car during the week in question.
On Monday, NFL Network’s ■
Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero reported that last September Elliott filed an incident report with police in Frisco, the Dallas suburb where the Cowboys franchise is based. Elliott called police to his house and told them he had received at least 50 phone calls from Thompson between 2:39 and 10 a.m. that day, and a few times tried to persuade her to stop. NFL Network said police no longer are investigating.
On Wednesday morning, Charles ■
Robinson of Yahoo! Sports broke the news that NFL investigators’ 160-page report on Elliott includes the fact that Thompson last year discussed with a friend the idea of perhaps trying to blackmail Elliott with the threat of selling sex tapes she had recorded of herself with the Cowboys star.
The NFL on Wednesday did not deny any of these accusations against Thompson.
Even if all are true, it sure doesn’t mean Elliott did not rough her up on three separate days in mid-July of last year.
From a Deflategate déjà vu standpoint, however, the fact the NFL — in informing Elliott by letter on Friday and quickly leaking it to the press, and also in its own official news release — chose to leave it to the Elliott camp to divulge things that undermine Thompson’s character, rather than acknowledge any of it itself, probably means the communications the NFL issued on Friday had inched through their lawyervetting assembly line for weeks.
Why? Perhaps for the purpose of girding for another ugly court battle against the union and a suspended star player.
And hey, the NFL’s thinking might have gone, once the Elliott camp inevitably releases all the bad stuff on Thompson, we can rip them for it publicly.
Some feud, eh?