NFL drops ball with inaction on abuse case
“Iunderstand the public’s misunderstanding of those things and how that can be difficult for them to understand how we get to those positions. But those are things that we have to do. I think it’s a lot deeper and a lot more complicated than it appears, but it gets a lot of focus.”
When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said these words to the BBC before Sunday’s second of three games played this month in London, he could have been referring to any number of unnecessarily drawn-out controversies under his watch. Deflategate and Tom Brady’s suspension. The ever- changing, ever- incomprehensible catch rule. The too- narrow purview of replay reviews. Brain- injury denials and distancing.
Sadly, Goodell was referring to the league’s latest, horrible handling of a player embroiled in domestic violence accusations. It comes just two years after the Ray Rice ignominy.
The only reason the average North American isn’t as outraged this time is because no smoking-gun video has surfaced of New York Giants kicker Josh Brown’s alleged numerous physical assaults of his then-wife.
The league suspended Brown before this season for just one game after police in Washington state declined to press assault charges against Brown following a May 2015 domestic violence incident.
Back in 2014, Goodell and the league faced justifiably widespread vitriol after the Rice video surfaced for handing Rice a two-game, wrist-slap punishment. It emerged that the Baltimore Ravens running back admitted to league investigators he punched his then-fiancée in the face in a Las Vegas hotel elevator and dragged her limp body out of it.
It was only later, when security video of the assault went viral, that the league knee- jerk reacted as it does: in full punish- and- protect mode.
First, the NFL slapped Rice with an unlawfully harsher ban. Later, it announced a new personal- conduct policy featuring a “baseline” suspension of six games for domestic violence. Then it named new vice-presidents of investigations as part of a promise that such cavalier treatment of alleged domestic violence by any league employee would never happen again.
That it has happened again only two years later is an outrage.
The following came to light last week, thanks only to dogged digging by journalists, not league investigators: that police in Washington state have known for some time that Brown admitted in written entries in a journal, letters and emails, to having repeatedly “physically, verbally and emotionally” abused his then-wife, Molly, plus other women. The revelation supports what Molly claimed in the summer she told police, that Brown assaulted her on some 20 different occasions.
Giants chairman John Mara — one of the most powerful figures in the league — professed this summer to knowing all there was to know about the Browns’ domestic violence incidents while defending the club’s decision to re-sign the veteran kicker to a new two-year deal worth a reported $4.75-million.
It also came out last week that the league assisted Molly Brown in moving to another hotel room at the Pro Bowl two years ago after the locked-out kicker was found pounding violently on their room door.
Everyone knows actions speak louder than words. Not enough people, including those who run the NFL, know that inaction speaks louder than everything.
FOSTER RETIRES: In a surprise announcement Monday night, Miami Dolphins RB Arian Foster retired from the NFL as one of the most prolific dual- threat RBs in the modern game. Foster, 30, for the past several years had battled soft- tissue and leg injuries, especially groin pulls. His meteoric rise may never be matched. With the Houston Texans he went from being an undrafted practice-squad rookie in 2009 to an all- pro phenom who led the NFL in rushing touchdowns in 2010. Foster was named to the Pro Bowl four times with Texans, in 2010-11-12-14. By 2013 his production waned because of mounting injuries. This past March the Texans released him. Miami signed him in July, but the groin injury flared up again. He rushed for only 55 yards this season, then saw backfield mate Jay Ajayi burst into stardom the past two weeks with back- to- back 200-yard games.
HERO: Landon Collins, S, Giants. His 64- yard i nterception return for a touchdown not only was one of the most dazzling defensive scores the NFL has seen in a long time, it tied the game against Los Angeles 10-10 in the second quarter, when the Giants offence was struggling. Collins’ second interception of Case Keenum, early in the fourth quarter, gave the Giants the ball at L. A.’s 35- yard line and set up Rashad Jennings’ winning touchdown run six plays later.
ZERO: Head coach Jeff Fisher and GM Les Snead, Rams. Fisher is insisting again, after Keenum’s latest dreadful passing performance, that No. 1 overall draft pick Jared Goff still isn’t ready to play. Many don’t believe Fisher, concluding he’s just trying to extend his own employment by delaying until next year the job-saving excuse of blaming a raw QB for his team’s struggles. Yet even if Fisher’s assessment of Goff is true, then he and Snead blew the first pick in the draft. Because a bunch of other supposedly lesser rookie draft picks have played, and their performances through two months range from OK to fabulous. That includes No. 2 overall pick Carson Wentz in Philadelphia, No. 26 overall pick Paxton Lynch in Denver, third- rounders Jacoby Brissett in New England and Cody Kessler in Cleveland, and fourth-rounder Dak Prescott in Dallas.