According to a report on Yahoo, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is planning on taking a tough tack against both former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress and suspended ex-Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Sources close to the situation are saying that Goodell could keep both off the field for the immediate future, another step in his strong stance against misdeeds off the field of play.
You might remember the case of Browns receiver Donte' Stallworth,
who pleaded guilty earlier this month to DUI vehicular manslaughter in
the March death of a man in Miami. Stallworth's plea will result in him
serving 30 days in jail and spending two years under house arrest. He
also agreed to pay a settlement to the family of the deceased.
Following the plea, Stallworth was suspended indefinitely without pay by Goodell.
And according to three sources — one with the Giants, one close to
Vick and one with the NFL — word is that Goodell is planning on
following a similar path with Burress and Vick. One of those sources
"indicated there was a reasonable likelihood that Vick, suspended
indefinitely by the league in August 2007, will not be allowed to play
this season and certainly not be with a team in training camp."
Now, these cases — and those of Adam "Pacman" Jones, Marshawn Lynch, Travis Henry and Matt Jones,
among many, many others — are all different. Some involved deaths,
while some involved drugs. Some of the players have only been accused,
while some have been convicted. Some are awaiting trial, while some
have already served their time.
And in a manner befitting the differences in each case, Goodell has
dealt with each of them on its own merits. Surely it's not fair to
blindly apply the same penalty to crimes of varying grades.
Despite those differences, though, Goodell deserves a huge amount of
credit for taking his firm, general position on these and other
off-the-field transgressions. His stance is one that says, "No, not in
my league."
In an age that sees professional athletes catered to and coddled
from a young age and making an often-exorbitant amount of money, many
of them mistakenly get the impression that they're above the law, that
they can do or get whatever they want, that the rules of society don’t
apply to them. Their families and friends — not to mention their
agents and attorneys — do little to challenge that notion.
Take Burress, for example. He allegedly shot himself in the leg in a
New York City nightclub in November. That may sound monumentally
stupid, but it's not illegal. However, possessing and firing an
unregistered gun in public is.
Burress was reportedly offered a plea deal that could have kept the
case from going to trial. But it could also have cost the former Giant
up to three and a half years in prison. Burress and his team — his
legal team, that is — said no.
Now the case has been adjourned until September and, according to his lawyer, may not be heard until March.
Roger Goodell is mad. And he has every right to be.
Like all professional sports leagues, the NFL is a business. It
makes most of its money from fans, from league sponsors and from the
television networks that pay a ton of dough to broadcast the games. And
like lots of businesses right now, the bottom line for the NFL isn't
looking as pristine as it once did. (They'll get by, but stay with me.)
Ongoing negative press — like the stories that would come from a
drawn-out Burress trial — can't help but cast the NFL's business in a
negative light.
So you can't blame Goodell for simply wanting it to go away. Instead, it's up to Goodell to make it go away.
When faced with the delay in the Burress case, the NFL source told
Yahoo that “the commissioner would rather have the prosecutors take
some action before he does anything, but he’s prepared to do something
regardless if he has to.”
And that's the thing: The NFL is his realm and it's his job to clean it up.
Because, when you've seen more players in handcuffs than in a helmet and pads, there's something wrong.
When you're more likely to see your favorite stars in a police
lineup than in the lineup for your team on Sunday, the league has a
problem.
And that problem hits home for Goodell when the fans and sponsors,
the groups that pay the NFL's bills, can't help but associate many of
these athletes with society's ills. That kind of perpetual negative
publicity makes these groups less likely to open their wallets and
support the league. Who would want to associate with that?
Goodell can't enforce the law. He can't send these alleged criminals
to jail. He's not their judge, he's not their jury and he's certainly
not their father. He can't tell them what to do and he can't tell them
what's right and what's wrong.
But he can defend the well-being of his league, his business, his livelihood. And he has every right to do that.
