Originally Posted by
Rastak
Tony, Deadspin said it better than I could:
"1. When talking or writing about the NFL's handling of the Adrian Peterson case, it's difficult to separate discussion of the vicious cruelty of Peterson's actions from the fairness of the NFL's adjudicatory process. You can wholeheartedly believe Peterson belongs in jail, or in hell, and believe at the same time that the NFL's power is dangerously centralized and wielded capriciously for labor-crushing ends.
2. The NFL recognizes that difficulty, and counts on the inability of the public to divorce the two concepts. It's one thing when the hammer falls on a guy who smoked weed one too many times, but the league knows that no right-thinking person is going to go to bat for Peterson, who stuck leaves in his four-year-old's mouth and whipped his testicles with a stick. It's the boiling frog story, and you tend not to notice the extremity of the heat when it's scalding someone who morally deserves it. But once you've mentally excused the NFL's actions under circumstances as extreme as child abuse, you empower the NFL to use that muscle memory for the next set of circumstances, ones which may not be so extreme."