Please, please, please NFL. Stop making me hate you. Let me
go back to loving Sundays. Please. It doesn’t seem like it’s really all that
hard. Wrong
is wrong. Just because our parents or grandparents did things a certain way
doesn’t make it right. Follow the “good enough for my parents” argument to its
conclusion and you’ll justify slavery. You’ll be cool with polygamy. You’ll be
the ape with a lethal leg bone in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” My mother once
“spanked” me with a shoe. We weren’t living down South when that happened so I
don’t think you can write that off as a “cultural norm.” I don’t remember
what childhood crime I committed that caused my mother to levy this judgment on
me. I was three years old. I don’t remember all that much of my third year on
the planet. I didn’t learn to swear till much later in life (thanks Uncle Ross)
but maybe I was inadvertently blasphemous. Maybe I repeated something I heard
my cousin David say. I thought my cousin David was the coolest when I was a
kid. I would’ve repeated anything he said as gospel cool. Like the fact our Uncle Phil was a “douchebag” (whatever that was). Or maybe I spilled my juice.
Whatever it was I did, when I periodically take stock of who I am today and
what I’ve accomplished in my life, I have never thought, “Thank Christ Mom hit
me with that shoe. Phew! Who knows where I’d be today if she hadn’t?”
Then again, complexity theory says I could blame mom for everything that happened after she hit me with
that shoe.
It’s tempting.
It’s been a long week. Football is where I like to go to get
away from it all; not so much this week. Do I really have to go on record as being against child
abuse? Fine. I’m against it. I’m against hitting women in the face, too.
This isn’t
going away any time soon. The cover up is always worse than the crime and while
“cover up” may be too strong, how else should we describe the back
room machinations of the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL in the Ray Rice case?
The consensus view
of Goodell’s presser is that it did little to restore the shield. It seems
to have shifted the narrative away from personal conduct and corporate
responsibility to a referendum on Goodell’s future as NFL Commissioner. Not
that anyone has covered themselves in credibility here. The owners appear happy
to let Goodell play the scapegoat. The NFLPA seems noticeably absent from the
discussion. Still working on their position on child abuse?
The NFL has got to get out of the business of defending
domestic violence, child abuse, drunk driving, possession of a controlled substance, vehicular homicide and whatever
other crimes are committed by owners, management and players. I don’t know how
the NFL’s personal conduct policy is worded but I’ve had a job all my life and
my employers’ personal conduct policies typically included the phrase “up to
and including termination” when describing the repercussions of any violation
of company rules.
Stop telling me you got it wrong. We know you got it wrong.
We’re the ones who told you, “You got it wrong.” You – the Ravens, the Vikings,
the Panthers, the 49ers and the NFL – were the last ones to know you got it wrong.
It’s time – way past time – to get it right.
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