PLETHORA OF PROBLEMS

Contentious issues bedevil NFL

If this were baseball, it would be three strikes and out. The NFL would be back in the dugout, feeling shame.

But this is football, America’s religion, and the sport’s ham-handed administrators are permitted an unlimited number of whiffs on even the hottest of hot-button issues without seeing anything more serious than a dip in TV ratings — which probably has more to do with iPhones and lousy matchups than public opprobrium.

It truly is the Teflon league.

What are the three topics that have garnered the most headlines the last two years and which, by rights, should have caused the National Football League to fear most for the integrity of its “brand?” In no particular order: Concussions, about which the NFL and its minions have lied and denied and misdirected despite a mountain of research for fear that full disclosure could cost untold billions in damages and erode the foundation of the game at the youth level.

Domestic violence, revulsion over which reached such a crescendo with the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson cases that the league vowed to adopt a new get-tough policy for its embarrassing number of abusers.

Deflategate, the overwrought crusade against New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, accusing him of using under-inflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game in January 2015.

Well, let’s see how Big Brother is getting along.

STRIKE ONE: The 2016 season kicked off with a Super Bowl rematch, in which the Denver Broncos began their post-Peyton Manning era by delivering at least four devastating helmet-to-helmet blows to Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, only one of which even drew a penalty (and it merely offset one by Carolina).

Newton remained in the game, hit after sickening hit.

Now, an NFL-NFLPA joint investigation into the concussion protocol that so plainly left Newton in a game he should have been sitting out has concluded that everything was cool except for a technology failure that prevented the athletic trainer in the press box from being in video contact with on-field doctors. So they’ll fix that, and everybody can go back to whistling Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

“After seeing the replay and observing Newton on the sideline, the physician and the neurotrauma consultant said that no further evaluation of Newton was necessary,” was the official explanation.

Every game, every week has similar hits involving less highprofile players. But the NFL seems convinced the storm has passed. Youth registration is up. The moms have been reassured that the game has never been safer.

Move along, folks, nothing to see here. STRIKE TWO: The NFL suspended New York Giants kicker Josh Brown for one game — one — at the start of the season, claiming it knew only about his May 2015 arrest for domestic violence assault on his then-wife Molly. The Giants, who knew about the arrest when they signed Brown to a two-year, US$4 million contract, and the NFL both claimed to be unaware of subsequent allegations (and more recently admissions) of repeated abuse, and the NFL said its investigators had been rebuffed by law enforcement when they tried to get more information. Those are some wily sleuths the NFL hires.

Brown’s ex-wife says the kicker assaulted her more than 20 times, and that the NFL knew about at least one subsequent incident, because she claims league and hotel security had to escort a drunk and disorderly Brown away from her hotel door at last year’s Pro Bowl in Hawaii — and moved Molly and her children to a different hotel “where Josh would not know where they were,” according to the police report.

NFL’s supposed zero-tolerance DV policy calls for a baseline suspension of six games for a first offence, but has a built-in leniency clause for mitigating circumstances.

So far, the volume of outrage has not come close to the public hysteria over 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem.

Priorities. STEE-RIKE THREE: Never mind the shaky science that determined only foul play by Brady and his confederates on the Pats’ equipment staff could have caused footballs to be minutely underinflated on a cold January day. The great irony of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s personal mission is that Brady’s four-game suspension not only had zero effect on the Patriots, who look Super Bowl-bound, but Brady has thrown the now zealously inspected footballs every bit as well, and often better, than he did the old squashy balls that the sour-grapes Indianapolis Colts alleged were easier to throw and catch on cold days.

And even weirder than that, there is now a school of thought that Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers — who, at the height of the Deflategate debate, said he preferred his footballs over-inflated because he has big hands and throws tighter spirals with a harder ball — has had two

of his worst seasons since officials began their painstaking pressure inspections.

So, um, Roger, your shot missed the target and may have maimed an innocent bystander. You might want to get your eyes checked. While you’re at it, see if the docs can find any sign of a conscience.