I sent out a tweet yesterday that was originally meant for a few laughs, but unfortunately it’s true. The NFL cares more about bullying than drug use. It’s not an opinion, it’s just the facts. Seriously.
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It’s cute how the @NFL cares more about bullying than players getting arrested for drugs.
We don’t have to look much further than what happened with Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver, Dwayne Bowe on Sunday. According to fox4kc.com and other media outlets, Bowe was doing 48 mph in a 35 mph zone and was pulled over by police. When the officer asked him for his licence and proof of insurance, Bowe said that he didn’t have his license with him and instead retrieved a passport from a small black leather bag. The officer said during conversation with the other occupants of the car he detected a strong odor of marijuana. Long story short – Bowe told the officer he had smoked marijuana while waiting at the airport but the multiple vials of marijuana found in the car were not his. OK, sure.
If convicted, Bowe is subject to discipline from the NFL, according to the league’s substance-abuse policy. The Chiefs are prohibited, under terms of the collective bargaining agreement, from disciplining Bowe before then, something Reid seemed to refer to Wednesday.
But is seems as if Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk has a different opinion on the matter.
All indications point to Bowe playing on Sunday. But, there’s no way in hell he’d be playing if he sent this voicemail to teammate Alex Smith:
“Hey, wassup, you half n—– piece of [expletive] . . . I saw you on Twitter, you been training ten weeks. [I want to] [expletive] in your [expletive] mouth. [I’m going to] slap your [expletive] mouth. [I’m going to] slap your real mother across the face (laughter). [Expletive] you, you’re still a rookie. I’ll kill you.”
I’m not saying Richie Incognito is innocent. He was 100% wrong to use that type of language (or speak to another human being in that manner), but he’s been suspended indefinitely even though the recipient of that message sends picture messages like this to his cell phone (WARNING: Contains strong language):
Bullying and Racism is never OK. But the way these cases are being handled, the NFL seems to care more about bullying than the abuse of drugs and alcohol. The message being sent is that if you are going to do drug and alcohol, that’s fine, just let it play out in the legal system and worry about it in the offseason. Richie Incognito is a complete jackass and in no way, shape, or form do I or TotalSportsBlog.com condone his actions, but the way the NFL handles their legal problems is flat-out embarrassing and irresponsible.
Maybe the problem is that the general public cares about athletes more than they do about themselves? Judging by the poll results below, this seems to be the case.
I’m pretty sure that if I got arrested for possession, I wouldn’t just get a personal foul flag. I’d get a pink slip. Only in the NFL can you get busted not once, but twice, for drugs, and still play the next week. What makes Bowe’s case even more absurd is that according to PFT: “In 2009, Bowe was suspended for four games for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs. That is a separate policy than the substance-abuse policy, which is the policy under which the NFL will deal with any fallout from this arrest.”
Separate policy? Come on now. The way I would be taking this is that if Richie Incognito is found “guilty” of everything in this whole case, he would be given one strike, but in two separate categories. Bullying and racism are different things, right? One could be defined as making a person feel inferior due to their skin color and the other one is physically and mentally intimidating another person. Not exactly the same thing, but could most definitely be considered the same type of violation. Just like failing a PED test and being arrested for being in possession of hard/recreational drugs. Both are drugs that you can’t use or be in possession of, but they carry much different penalties as far as the NFL goes. Get caught with some crack at 6am on a Wednesday? Make sure you check out those 10 new plays in the playbook and be ready for Sunday. Get caught taking some steroids? Have fun sitting at home and not collecting a paycheck for a month. I guess the message is to party and worry about the consequences later?
Nothing that Roger Goodell does these days is for the good of the game. Everything he does is about lining the pockets of the owners. Anyway that this guy can get the players on the field, he makes sure it happens. It clearly doesn’t matter that the quality of play or the safety of the players suffers. As long as players are on the field, money keeps going into owners pockets. After all, he works for the owners. Not the players, and certainly not us.
