Few things please me more than when the inane ramblings of certain scribes over at the local newspaper are proven wrong. The writers who still try to pound home the narrative that the Sabres’ carefully-crafted plan to finish last and draft Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel was wrong are starting to eat their words (or at least they should be chowing down on them). Now we can similarly critique the pundits who called for the Bills to cut LeSean McCoy back in February.
Both Jerry Sullivan and Bucky Gleason used either column space or Twitter to call for McCoy’s release after news of his involvement in a nightclub brawl with off-duty Philadelphia police officers went public. Before McCoy was even issued an arrest warrant, Sullivan and Gleason ran to the nearest computer to begin moralizing the whole incident and toss around words and phrases like “problem child,” “Shady being shady,” “loose cannon,” “dumb,” “aloof,” “too cool for school,” and other coded terms.
When the Philadelphia district attorney announced earlier this month that no charges would be filed against McCoy, Sullivan wrote a bizarre column in which he claimed Shady was fortunate because he had the financial resources to get off easy and that urban police “don’t tend to get the benefit of the doubt in this country nowadays,” which, I mean, I don’t even know where to begin with that one. Sullivan also pointed to the possibility that the NFL could still discipline McCoy before calling on Shady to start acting like a responsible adult and making several references to the amount of money the Bills are paying him, as if that really matters here.
Now that even the NFL has decided that McCoy didn’t do anything wrong back in February, the local wizards of the keyboard really look ridiculous. Of course, they’ll never admit their columns were wrong, but that’s another story for another day.
The story here, really, is that McCoy won’t face discipline from the league that loves handing out rather arbitrary punishments for poor off-field behavior. The league implemented its conduct policy in 1997, strengthened it under Roger Goodell in 2007, and took it up another notch before the start of this past season, approving a new process in which a disciplinary officer with a criminal justice background now oversees investigations. The enhanced policy procedures were implemented in response to the league’s handling of high-profile domestic violence cases, including the ones involving Ray Rice and Greg Hardy.
I know the league claims it’s taking domestic violence and drug abuse issues seriously with this enhanced policy, but it’s really not. This is all about protecting the image and brand of the league at a time where it’s come under more scrutiny than ever.
While Goodell contends that his personal conduct policy holds players to a higher standard, what it really has done has opened players up to be scrutinized for every single thing they do off the field while those who do commit serious transgressions (Rice, Hardy, even Adrian Peterson), receive more lenient punishments that don’t fit their actions.
McCoy is a good example of this. News of his fight begins to make waves, a video is posted, and the finger wagging starts before any evidence is collected. McCoy is made out to be a villain before we even know what really happened. When it’s announced he won’t receive any discipline, the pearl clutchers who stereotyped McCoy through the whole ordeal are left looking for answers.
This happens because of the league and its failure to put a conduct policy that makes sense into place. How does it make sense that Ray Rice received an initial two-game suspension for slugging his fiancé and dragging her out of an elevator (on tape) while Le‘Veon Bell, a first-time offender, got a four-game suspension for a DUI arrest? (Bell’s suspension was reduced to two games following an appeal)
While the league has tried to come down hard on players who violate the league’s substance abuse and performance-enhancing substances policies, players who have found themselves in trouble for violent crimes have gotten off relatively easy. Hardy only missed four games in 2015 for beating the crap out of his girlfriend, throwing her onto a bed full of semi-automatic weapons, and threatening to kill her. Players like Antonio Gates, Derek Wolfe, and Victor Butler received suspensions of the same length for using performance-enhancing substances. How does that make sense?
There’s a certain level of hypocrisy in play here, which is not surprising coming from a league that claims to be an authority on discipline and morality while players like Hardy are still given a uniform and helmet on Sundays. This is the same league that routinely tests for marijuana and HGH use and has no problems handing down suspensions for positive tests while team doctors are basically funneling dangerous painkillers into the mouths of players to mask the pain of playing this incredibly violent sport. Let’s do nothing about the increasing number of retired players who are living with CTE or early onset Alzheimer’s or dementia, but you bet we’ll come down hard on the guy with a little weed in his system.
While the situation McCoy is alleged to have found himself in is certainly more serious than a positive marijuana or HGH test, it appears that there’s no evidence of wrong-doing on his end, other than being around the wrong people at the wrong time. This ended up being revealed in the investigation by the Philadelphia police. There was no need to start calling for McCoy’s head or start fearing a lengthy suspension. And yet, this is what we had to listen to while the investigation played out.
As it became clearer and clearer that McCoy would not be charged with a crime, those who wanted to make an example out of him began pointing to the looming discipline the league would hand down to punish him. Bills fans were stuck waiting to hear if one of the best players on the team would be suspended. If a legal investigation found that McCoy had committed no crime, why should he still have to wait to find out about discipline from the league?
What ends up happening is that fans of the league’s 32 teams get more upset about how long their favorite players will be out of the lineup than about the serious problems the league continues to sidestep. Issues like player safety, chronic narcotic use, and the mental health of these athletes do not generate clicks quite like writing a column calling for McCoy to be cut or warning fans that league discipline is still to come for one of their favorite team’s stars. Fans are left holding their breath waiting to hear about punishment, and that’s when the faux outrage and fake morality takes over.
Do you think New England Patriots fans really cared one bit about Roger Goodell and his handling of punishments before Deflategate? No. You bet they did when he announced Tom Brady was being suspended. The CTE-related deaths of former Patriots’ fan favorites Junior Seau and Mosi Tatupu were not causes for the Gillette Stadium crowd to show up with “Fire Goodell” signs, but Brady’s suspension was. The league has found a way to get people talking about its arbitrary punishments, but not the more important issues that truly threaten the integrity of the game.
I hope the lessons we take from McCoy’s nightclub brawl are not to moralize every single off-field event without having some basic understanding of what really happened (I’m looking at you, TBN), and that the league really needs to take a look at it’s personal conduct policy and wonder if it’s having the effect it’s supposed to have.
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