How should you react?
I am so conflicted about all this.
Not the final four weeks of what will be an amazing sprint to the finish line for teams trying to secure NFL playoff spots, but rather, how I should feel, what I should write, what would you ask, and how do you react to the on-going sagas off the field in the NFL.
There is Ray-Janay Rice. There is Adrian Peterson. There is the never-ending Ferguson, Missouri tragedy.
Somebody has to deal with all this, someone should have some feeling about this, the some things of these stories should not just be ignored.
Ray Rice beat Roger Goodell at the arbitration table, reinstated by a judge, because the Commissioner was so heavy handed, he violated his own CBA by the double dose of discipline handed down to the once popular Baltimore Ravens running back.
I would assume Rice will be signed, and he does deserve a second chance, to prove this was the only blight mark on what has been a very good career.
But the specter of the violent act, what was said vs what was implied, and the attitude since then, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The two videos do not matchup with Rice’s assertions, he ‘hit’ his wife, rather than the pointed ‘he punched his wife’ and knocked her out. What kind of man, drunk as she and he were, would do that to a loved one?.
The other question, the double-talk from his fiancee-wife, who begs the media not to intervene in the Rice family private life, then goes on ESPN and NBC and talks and talks and talks about him, the NFL, the Ravens. She is making it out that the running back wound up being the victim if all of this.
Still to be determined, Rice’s second case, against the Ravens, wanting his full back salary for the games he was illegally taken off the field.
The Adrian Peterson child abuse case continues on, but no one seems to grasp the hideous nature of the injuries his child suffered. I have yet to hear any of the 1800-NFL players come out publically and say what the Vikings running back did to his 4-year old son was egregious.
Minnesota has paid him his full salary to sit, and even though he plea bargained the case, it is hard to believe people should just accept Rice back to the NFL with open arms. Today NFL security chief Harold Henderson, assigned by Goodell, will hold a reinstatement hearing for Peterson.
And finally outside St. Louis the smoldering anger of Ferguson, Missouri, the armed state of police vs citizens in the aftermath of the tragedy, the self-defense shooting of Michael Brown. There was a victim for sure, and I am surprised, despite all the evidence presented to a grand jury, this case was not brought to trial. You can indict a ham sandwich, but not a police officer?
Maybe a civil lawsuit will take the story to the next level.
But how do you accept the acts of the 5-Rams players, who emerged from the team tunnel on Sunday, with a signature “Hands Up-Don’t Shoot” message for America to see. They’ve forgotten the evidence that showed the 6’4-280 lb Brown reaching into the officer’s car grabbing his gun. All the Rams players what to reference is the end result, the shooting death.
There’s also a mixed message too. Does a past trouble-maker, now a so-called law abiding wide receiver Kenny Britt, who had lots of scrapes in Tennessee with the Titans and police, and who said ‘black lives count too’, raise his hands, and signify it’s okay to riot and burn your own town down, over the police officer decision in the grand jury case?
Maybe “Hands Up-stop the rioting” would have been a better signature message from the Rams, to an inflamed town, that needs changes, and healing too.
It’s almost as if Rams players think it’s okay what happened that night after the grand jury press conference. Okay to burn, loot, rob as a repayment huh? St. Louis police are furious at the Rams and now the NFL which refuses inject themselves in this issue. They’ll fine a player for his socks, or a cheap shsot, bot won’t deal with this. Cops have rights. Innocent business owners in Ferguson have rights. Those weren’t protesters, they were criminals rioting, and Rams players think that’s okay.
You tell me how you feel.
Ray Rice’s wife needs to stop talking. The Rams players are dead wrong with their message. I don’t think I will ever respect Adrian Peterson for what he did to that son.
How should you react? What do think?
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