Foster par for discourse in Washington
It’s been four years since Ray Rice, and a lot has happened since then. If you care about truth and morality and pay attention to the world, really plug in, every day is like being in a giant dryer full of rocks, tumbling and tumbling, and it is punishing and disorienting and exhausting, every day.
But Ray Rice still rings a bell, right? In 2013, the then-Baltimore Ravens running back punched his fiancée in an elevator, knocking her unconscious, and was charged with aggravated assault. He was suspended for two games. TMZ got the tape and there was outrage, real outrage. It was a scandal. Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Rice indefinitely, the NFL lied about what they knew when, and a gentleman named Robert Mueller III was brought in to conduct an independent investigation that ended up criticizing both the league and the Ravens. Wonder what Bob is up to now.
This week, linebacker Reuben Foster, who has a troubled history, was released by the San Francisco 49ers after a domestic-violence arrest, and was immediately claimed on waivers by Washington. Washington was the only team to put in a claim, and the NFL put Foster on the commissioner’s exempt list to keep him from practising or
playing with the team. VP of player personnel Doug Williams spoke to a D.C. radio station Thursday and laid out the reasoning, clear as day.
“Washington is Washington, and we’re the Redskins, and you’re going to get a lot of flak regardless,” Williams said. “Basically what you’re doing here is you’re taking a highrisk chance. The high risk was the beat-up that we’re going to take from PR.”
Sure. They look cynical, opportunistic, morally bankrupt. But then, when you spend a decade defending a racist name — and when Dan Snyder is your owner — crisis management is just another term for day-to-day operations. But Williams went on.
“We’ve got people who are in high, high, high, high places that have done far worse, and if you look at it realistically, they’re still up there,” he said. “This is small potatoes (compared to) a lot of things out there. But at the same time, it’s a big issue in America today, whether or not it’s in football, whether or not it’s in everyday life, whether or not it’s in politics, it’s out there.”
The worst thing is that the argument may be deeply cynical, but it’s not incorrect.
Did Baltimore suffer for Rice?
Did Dallas after signing defensive end Greg Hardy — who was convicted of domestic assault by a judge in 2015 before being acquitted on appeal when the accuser could not be found — or from its continued employment of Ezekiel Elliott, who was suspended for six games following a domestic-violence case in 2017?
Or the Giants after all but covering for punter Josh Brown as he serially abused his wife? Giants owner John Mara oversaw the Rice investigation, by the way.
And after making so much noise about strengthening its stance on domestic violence, the NFL bungled the Brown case in much the same way it bungled the Rice case. What have we learned?
As for Williams pointing to the larger context of the #MeToo era, well: The president of the United States has been credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault by 17 women. His most recent Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh, was credibly accused and was confirmed.
The Miami Herald delivered a jaw-dropping expose of how billionaire Jeffrey Epstein — friend to the Clintons, Trump, Prince Andrew and many others — cut deals and used powerful friends to contain the damage of what was essentially a predatory pedophile sex ring. Epstein cut the deal with a prosecutor who is now secretary of labor. The list doesn’t end there. For every powerful man toppled by the truth about how they have treated women, there are others who are insulated by power, or who have their fans behind them, and those fans can excuse anything for the team. The tribalism of politics mirrors the fandom of sports.
So Washington signed Reuben Foster, because if you’re a fan at this point — after the racist name, the bilious owner, the years of failure and the bottomless cynicism — where are you going to go? The Washington Redskins just didn’t pretend they were better than they are. There’s a lot of that going around in Washington these days.