Discussion for article #226991
Prove it, Ginger. Reopen the Rice matter and settle it properly.
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He canât. The NFLâs CBA doesnât allow things like that. The decision was already made
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Uh, no. He should have to live with how he blew that. And a precedent of punishing someone and then going back and punishing them again is no good.
The real issue to me is why is the NFL doing this at all? No other sports league in the world has decided that the criminal justice system is beneath them and must be buoyed with a private judge and jury (and donât claim they donât, theyâve suspended players that havenât even been charged with a crime - and Iâm not talking about failed drug tests or on field incidents). Even the NFL didnât do this until Goodell got in office and decided to âcrack the whipâ and administer justice on all the unruly âthugsâ the league makes billions of dollars of of. Rice went to court, got in a diversionary program, will perform 500 hours of community service and is required to go to counseling as well. The only reason people expect Goodell to add punishment on top of this is because he set that precedent a few years ago to show what a big man he is and how he knows how to keep them in their place. This is his ego catching up to him.
Ya think? JeezâŚ
Ray Rice is an employee. If I had an employee who very publically beat on his girlfriend do you not think it would be within my purview as an employer to take some kind of action if said employee is representing my company in a way that reflects poorly to the public? Isnât this exactly why other employers have so-called morality clauses? Ray didnât get fired; he got suspended from his job. Many employers would have and could have fired an employee for such egregious behavior.
But overall, what I think has brought this into the public eye is how itâs juxtaposed against Josh Gordonâs one year suspension for testing positive for marijuana in his system. The way it looks to the average person is: smoke a little spliff, get suspended for a year; beat your girlfriend unconscious, get suspended for two games. Iâm sure the circumstances are probably more complicated than that, but it doesnât look like a very evenhanded way to take care of poor employee performance.
I fully accept that the league has a legal right to do this and every contract in the NFL has a morals clause (not that it matters, since theyâre mostly not guaranteed anyway - meaning teams can dump them pretty much whenever they feel like). But so does every other professional league, except they donât choose to be judge and jury in legal matters, only Goodell and his stadium sized ego do. This is a recent decision (theyâve been doing this well less than a decade) and was all about Goodell showing how tough he could be on the blahs that the league makes 9 billion dollars a year off of. Fuck Goodell and this âpolicyâ.
These are not normal employees, no matter how much people want to pretend they are. The commissioner or head of marketing can be replaced and no one gives a shit because it doesnât effect product. The players are the product. Teams decide all the time if the risks/PR hits are worth paying them for. We donât need Goodell pretending heâs King Solomon on top of that. It was a bad decision when he started doing this a few years ago and itâs gotten worse as heâs decided that he now needs to be ever tougher on crime, as if thatâs the NFL Commissionerâs role.
As for Gordon, the league had a ridiculous policy already in place surrounding substance abuse and heâs a repeat offender. Again the league tied their own hands with ridiculous decisions to again, police and try and convict the people they make money off of while doing very little of impact themselves. The NBA, MLB, Soccer leagues abroad all handle this better by letting the legal process decide these matters.
All in all, the NFL is full of sh*t.
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Behold the power of the people. Who says women, and the men who love them, havenât got any power? Bad press/public outrage is what changed his mind.
Non work-related behavior is no business of employers. If workers violate the law, thatâs for the courts to deal with. While technically, I suspect that NFL players are contractors not employees, they are unionized and the union should oppose all this crap by Goodell. Basically, heâs giving into moralistic sports writers and political witchhunters, many if not most of whom are liberals trying to enforce their view of bourgeois morality on the rest of us. If you donât like what the players are doing, then donât watch or go to the games. End of story.
In discussing this with friends, I made an argument about sports players being models of social behavior. When I was in school, sports culture was centered around players setting a good example for others. In reality, the jocks were far too often jerks, but the culture was touted as one of leadership, good sportsmanship and privilege. It is a privilege to be on the team and if you donât set a good example, then youâd get punished for it. Then someone brought up this from last November: âPolice Have a Much Bigger Domestic Abuse Problem Than the NFLâ.
Hereâs an interesting quote:
âAs the National Center for Women and Policing noted in a heavily footnoted information sheet, âTwo studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general.â Cops âtypically handle cases of police family violence informally, often without an official report, investigation, or even check of the victimâs safety,â the summary continues. âThis âinformalâ method is often in direct contradiction to legislative mandates and departmental policies regarding the appropriate response to domestic violence crimes.â Finally, âeven officers who are found guilty of domestic violence are unlikely to be fired, arrested, or referred for prosecution.ââ