As philosopher George Santayana once famously stated, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
God bless the National Football League. Since 1920, the NFL has brought millions of Americans an escape from the doldrums of Sunday afternoon. Watching 22 adult males beat each other up in an orchestra of tackles, trucks and commercials for one-day fantasy leagues, has a firm chokehold on the American zeitgeist. Despite the spectacle, the pageantry and the possible mental and physical trauma, football has been facing some choppy waters as of late. Before we get to Greg Hardy, who has been in the news recently, we must talk about the straw that broke the NFL’s back.
February 19, 2014 is the day in which TMZ, the media giant known for sparking scandal, caught (former) Baltimore Ravens superstar running back, Ray Rice assaulting his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer, and dragging her body out of a hotel elevator. Naturally, the two were both arrested. In July 24, 2014, five months after the incident had happened, the NFL suspended Ray Rice for two games. Maybe I’m crazy (I am a Cowboys fan after all) but doesn’t two games for a man who was caught red-handed dragging his wife’s body (they married on March 28, 2014) out of an elevator a little weird? But Ray and his wife did put up a convincing argument to the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell. Not to mention the two went through and still got married despite the tumultuous few months they had, and Ray did agree to go through anger management classes.
Luckily the NFL realized they had made a dumb decision and revamped their domestic policy. Now when a player is involved in a domestic violence case, the first offense includes a six-game suspension and another case gets you banned from the game completely. For some unknown reason, Ray Rice kept his two game slap on the wrist and began to work on getting ready for the 2014-2015 season.
Oh no.
On September 8, TMZ released another video of the elevator incident which featured Ray Rice punching his wife in the face and knocking her unconscious. However, this time the video had been shown to the public. On the same day, Rice’s team, the Baltimore Ravens, did the right thing, and kicked him off the team. Not to mention a little addendum by the NFL which suspended him immediately and indefinitely from the game of football.
At this point, the NFL was a little shaken up. Not only had this story completely blown up in their faces, but a story at the very beginning of the off-season had now managed to stay relevant all the way to the start of the season. What this means for the fans of the NFL(the people watching every game and feeding more money into the billion dollar machine of Americana – the NFL)? Now, every commentator, announcer and reporter (including myself) had to hear talk of it non-stop at every football game, every ESPN channel and every sports-talk radio station.
The story didn’t really stop there and doesn’t necessarily have a happy or sad ending. Another two months of tensions between Ray Rice’s people and the NFL’s people continued and finally culminated into Ray’s eventual, triumphant reinstatement into the NFL on November 28th, 2014.
Almost a year later and Ray Rice has yet to sign to a team. However, he has stated that if he didn’t get signed by a team, he would want to work with the league in helping players and victims who go through domestic violence and abuse.
This scandal was only the beginning of the NFL’s problems
Because I myself am tired of hearing about this, I will try my best to sum up the Tom Brady ball deflation scandal, or “Deflategate” for short, in a few sentences.
After the 2015 AFC Championship game when the New England Patriots destroyed the Indianapolis Colts 45-7, a few of the Colts players noticed the balls that the Patriots were using seemed to be deflated. The Patriots didn’t really think much of it at the time since they were preparing for their sixth Super Bowl appearance with Tom Brady. Quite like the Ray Rice fiasco, Deflategate was all anyone could talk about. After various findings, such as Brady destroying his phone filled with texts regarding the deflations, and a conversation between two equipment workers, Tom Brady was suspended for four games. However, after a lengthy appeal process lasting almost four months and going all the way to federal court, Tom Brady was free at last. His four game suspension had been completely removed after U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman believed that Commissioner Roger Goodell had gone too hard on the Patriots quarterback. The irony of it all is that halfway through the season, Tom Brady is on pace to have one of his best ever seasons at 38 years old.
So after going not punishing a player enough, punishing a player too much, and getting embarrassed by a federal judge, Roger Goodell still has a firm grip on the job of NFL commissioner. In 2013, before any of these scandals began, a USA Today poll showed that 61 percent of players who were polled did not approve of Goodell’s actions.
The most recent scandal on the NFL’s horizon hits a little closer to home and involves Dallas Cowboys Defensive End Greg Hardy.
On May 13, 2014, Greg Hardy’s ex-girlfriend, Nicole Holder, claimed that he grabbed her out of her bed and threw her onto a couch covered in what is believed to be around 25 to 30 guns.
After the Carolina Panthers’ opening game on September 7, Hardy became deactivated for the Panthers home-opener, and put on the commissioner’s exempt list. The exempt list is rare, but is usually for players who deal with legal issues and allows them to keep getting paid while not playing or taking up a roster spot. This list was also used for Adrian Peterson’s child abuse scandal. Greg Hardy would not play for the Carolina Panthers again. By March of 2015, five months since he had last played a snap of football, Hardy became an unrestricted free agent.
Eight days later, the Dallas Cowboys and their owner, Jerry Jones, decided to give him a second chance, and pick up Hardy for a one-year, $11.3 million contract. However, there was a disturbance in the force. The harbingers of doom, the National Football League, threw down the hammer once more and suspended Greg Hardy for 10 games without pay.
Like Ray Rice, Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson, almost the entire 2012 New Orleans Saints defense, Ndamukong Suh, and the dozens of players before him who believed Roger Goodell went too far, Hardy and his affiliates chose to appeal, and managed to overturn this decision (like seriously, does the NFL just automatically start an appeal process after they suspend someone?). His suspension was lowered from 10 to 4 games. Like Tom Brady, Hardy probably could have appealed further and miss only around three to two games, but for an unknown reason, he decided to keep his suspension where he would appear in week five, ironically against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
So the controversy involving Greg Hardy had finally ended. He immediately made a large impact on an already stellar defense, forcing a fumble and sacking Tom Brady twice. His year of troubles were finally behind him and he, along with the rest of the Cowboys, were ready to make a run for their first Super Bowl in two decades.
Oh no.
On Nov. 6, after playing three games, Deadspin, a website that I have a personal hatred for after they destroyed my personal idol, Hulk Hogan, released pictures showing the bruises and cuts on Nicole Holder, Hardy’s ex-girlfriend and accuser.
Now the flame has been reignited, and any doubts of what kind of man he is has been put to rest. Despite the history of domestic abuse, the lack of response to media interviews, and the on-field altercations between him and his own teammates, Jerry Jones still stays optimistic that Greg Hardy is not only a great starter, but worthy of a contract extension.
The Thursday before the Cowboys faced off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a game that was so boring, it made me switch to soccer to wake up, Hardy missed multiple team meetings, which is a big no-no for even the best players. When Ray Rice tells you to clean up your act, you might need to think about what you’re doing.
Putting this man on a pedestal and pretending what he did was okay has rubbed many people the wrong way, including myself. So, what do we do as fans to show that this isn’t okay? Vote with your time and vote with your wallet. The people that make the NFL a multi-billion dollar business are the people who pay hundreds of dollars to go see teams play, watch every game on TV, and buy all of the t-shirts and hats they make every year.
I love the National Football League so much, but there’s a lot of problems right now. Does Roger Goodell deserve to be thrown out for his mistreatment of players? Are the owners to blame for allowing these players to keep playing? Everyone is at fault and endless media coverage and scandals will still continue to be an issue unless we make a stand as fans to stop allowing the NFL to sweep these cases under the rug and act like nothing happened. Domestic abuse is a real issue and it affects everyone involved in some way. To pretend like the problems end after the court case has been dismissed is ignorant and will cause the downfall of the league as we know it if we’re not careful.
