The 2015 " I just can't stay out of jail " Thread .

[pbmax]

The league requires that formal charges be brought against the player before putting him on the exempt list. In this case it took 6 weeks for that to happen. There was quite a bit of investigation done, with evidence that corroborated the woman's claim. Maybe a woman could go all 'Gone Girl' on a player, and make a public case that looked sensational and push for fast action, but that would take a good bit of planning and preparation to pull off.

Ah, I was unaware this had been percolating. Thought it was breaking news.

[mraynrand]

I'm not following this... Are you saying that a paid suspension by the NFL taints a jury when the justice system takes the case to court?

not necessarily, but I suppose it could. No, I was just making the point that it's a bad idea generally to suspend a guy before conviction. Wrong indictments are made all the time. So what does the player get if the indictment is wrong? Do they get to replay the game?

[mraynrand]

A fake accusation has to have some well-faked supporting evidence or it won't go anywhere.

not necessarily. It depends on the prosecutor, etc. etc. People have agendas.

[vince]

not necessarily, but I suppose it could. No, I was just making the point that it's a bad idea generally to suspend a guy before conviction. Wrong indictments are made all the time. So what does the player get if the indictment is wrong? Do they get to replay the game?

The only justice in business other than what's bound by the law is colored green. The NFL is obligated to fulfill their contract with the player, which is why they're paying him, but if his presence on the field is bad for the brand, I think their decision is an easy one. Cops who are under investigation are given paid leave. Doctors get their license suspended pending investigations. If the player is ultimately convicted, they'll stop paying him too but not before. If it's a bogus indictment then perhaps the player has recourse against his accusers or the state/fed but the NFL is an innocent victim here and it needs to minimize its damages.

It's a bad situation for both the player and the league. The league needs to do what it can to protect itself, and the player needs to focus on keeping his ass out of jail. Neither of those needs suggest the player should be showcased before hundreds of millions of people.

[mraynrand]

I don't disagree Vince, but I do see it as a pendulum, and now it is swinging pretty far towards the presumption of guilt side. You're right, people are just trying to protect images and $$$, but I believe it is because there is an intentional assault on football and football culture, by the left in this country. Sorry to let politics bleed in, but it's a reality, and it's affecting the game. In most cases, I think the suspensions and paid leaves are reasonable, but I don't like the trend, and I don't like the motivation.

[vince]

I don't disagree Vince, but I do see it as a pendulum, and now it is swinging pretty far towards the presumption of guilt side. You're right, people are just trying to protect images and $$$, but I believe it is because there is an intentional assault on football and football culture, by the left in this country. Sorry to let politics bleed in, but it's a reality, and it's affecting the game. In most cases, I think the suspensions and paid leaves are reasonable, but I don't like the trend, and I don't like the motivation.

I see what you're saying too. I just don't think the NFL is presuming guilt or innocence - just protecting itself from what's actually occurred to it.

[Guiness]

I see what you're saying too. I just don't think the NFL is presuming guilt or innocence - just protecting itself from what's actually occurred to it.

Agreed. One flaw though, that PFT has pointed out several times though, is that the NFL does not consider suspension with pay to be punishment. It is for a several reasons. How this affects things is a big deal in the Peterson case, where he missed almost the entire season on the exempt list, and when they assessed punishment did not give him credit for 'time served'.

[mraynrand]

I see what you're saying too. I just don't think the NFL is presuming guilt or innocence - just protecting itself from what's actually occurred to it.

presumption of guilt is the wrong term. CYA would be better. Bending to pressure is the essence of it.

[mraynrand]

Agreed. One flaw though, that PFT has pointed out several times though, is that the NFL does not consider suspension with pay to be punishment. It is for a several reasons. How this affects things is a big deal in the Peterson case, where he missed almost the entire season on the exempt list, and when they assessed punishment did not give him credit for 'time served'.

That's probably something they could fix, and still appropriately punish while keeping up the appearances they want. But ultimately, it's not up to the NFL. It's in control of the agitators and public opinion. The NFL has made that much pretty clear.

[vince]

Agreed. One flaw though, that PFT has pointed out several times though, is that the NFL does not consider suspension with pay to be punishment. It is for a several reasons. How this affects things is a big deal in the Peterson case, where he missed almost the entire season on the exempt list, and when they assessed punishment did not give him credit for 'time served'.

I agree with the NFL that suspension with pay is not punishment. Until it hits a player's wallet, it's not "punishment" from that standpoint. If the player incurs some "loss" or injustice (what that would be I'm not sure. The guy's getting an extended paid vacation.) due to him not playing in one or more games, then he can/should sue his accusor(s) for retribution because they caused the damage by virtue of their accusation and/or indictment, not the NFL. Hell the NFL probably should sue them too in that case.

[mraynrand]

^^^^ As we saw with Suh, the argument that suspension - even without pay - punishes the player can be weaker than the argument that it punishes the team, the fans and other teams that are relying on competitive games

[Guiness]

^^^^ As we saw with Suh, the argument that suspension - even without pay - punishes the player can be weaker than the argument that it punishes the team, the fans and other teams that are relying on competitive games

But a part of Suh's argument was that it punished him as well, and the arbitrator bought that.

The argument that 'football players want to play football, and not letting them is punishment' is not going to be bought by everyone, mostly because all they see is the money they're being paid to do nothing. But there is another money argument that should make sense to everyone - football is the ultimate 'what have you done for me lately' sport, and future contracts are based on recent (very recent!) performances. If, say, an RB is forced to sit a season when he's 29, his chances of getting one more contract are significantly less that year later when he's 30 and hasn't seen the field in a year. Even if the reason he was sat ends up going away.

[Guiness]

Not a current player, but someone who hasn't been out of the game long
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...olice-custody/

[pbmax]

I don't agree that suspension with pay is not punishment. It clearly is. The natural state is to participate. No cop wants to be administrative leave, and no player wants to be removed from the team.

Not being on the active roster affects bonuses and accrued seasons, which affects the FA clock, advancement of contract years and retirement packages. It also can affect contract negotiations if those are on the near term horizon. Taken to court, I don't think it stands because each of those other issues have been negotiated in the CBA and you can't modify it without negotiations and an agreement unless the CBA has come to an end.

Suspension with pay should only be temporary and used in extreme cases (where another life has been put in jeopardy or such) and allow the League to do due diligence.

If the League has done its investigation with the player in question, it should move to suspend him for a term agreed to with the NFLPA (based on predetermined scales) if they have corroborating evidence. To move to suspension with pay after an investigation is just kicking the can down the road and there is no credit for time served.

[vince]

Suspension with pay should only be temporary and used in extreme cases (where another life has been put in jeopardy or such) and allow the League to do due diligence.

The NFL says rape and child/spousal abuse are extreme enough for them - and I agree.

I agree that suspension with pay does negatively impact the player, but it is hardly adequate enough punishment to count as "time served" for these types of issues in the event of a legal finding of guilt - regardless of whether the legal system deems whipping a 4-year old child to the point of bleeding is a class A felony or simple misdemeanor. The issue for the league is the extent to which the situation risks blowing up in the media - and therefore in its face - if it doesn't act. And then if given the need for action, what is the least bad option among the slew of bad ones.

Waiting for the justice system to run its course is not a viable option at all, and taking the time to perform its own due diligence may not be either depending on the profile of the player and/or the purported crime. Either of those choices only exacerbates the public relations nightmare when it is put in these situations. Once awakened, the public won’t wait for due diligence – particularly by the global billion-dollar, market-fixing conglomerate. They not only won’t pay attention long enough to withhold judgment, but by definition the public doesn’t trust them in the first place. As a society, we're hungry to dis the NFL at any opportunity. Too rich, too powerful, too expensive. We'll pay it anyway, but bitch about it all day long while we eat up what they offer.

Immediate action - even if only a forced paid vacation - is necessary and warranted for the league to minimize the cost to it by issues that elicit such strong emotional public reaction (woman/child abuse) that quickly graduate from the local sports pages to the national nightly and weekly news - or perhaps worse yet - as was a potential risk in this case - becoming the dominant party-talk issue at all the Super Bowl parties throughout the world.

The lesser of the evils (suspension with pay vs. wait and risk widespread public perception of inaction/distrust/”not caring” about women, children among a bunch of powerful violence-feeding barbarians/etc.) is pretty clear in my view. Hardcore fans like you guys who are engaged enough to concern themselves with performance/workout bonuses and whether the NFL has any obligation to perform due diligence in the first place (it doesn’t - unless agreed to by contract) are one in a million relative to the short-attention-span, judgment-rushing, women and children-loving, Super Bowl watching - public at-large. If the league doesn’t do something quickly, it might as well have raped the women and whipped the kids itself in the minds of the buying public.

[mraynrand]

Once awakened, the public won’t wait for due diligence – particularly by the global billion-dollar, market-fixing conglomerate. They not only won’t pay attention long enough to withhold judgment, but by definition the public doesn’t trust them in the first place. As a society, we're hungry to dis the NFL at any opportunity. Too rich, too powerful, too expensive.

But ultimately, it's not up to the NFL. It's in control of the agitators and public opinion. The NFL has made that much pretty clear.

If the league doesn’t do something quickly, it might as well have raped the women and whipped the kids itself in the minds of the buying public.

This image is being promulgated by the anti-NFL forces, and they are loud and aggressive activists/agitators.

If I were a typical NFL player, I'd be pretty pissed that the NFL is bending over (!) to pressure groups that at this point are essentially treating all NFL players as rapists in waiting.



But, is the NFL really all that expensive? Almost everyone has some form of cable other services beyond 'broadcast' and there are lots of games available. The Sunday Ticket is expensive - several hundreds/season, but you get all the games. If you really like football that much, it's a total score and value. Going to games is expensive, but actually not even - it only depends on certain games and certain stadiums. For a large percentage of games, you can get in relatively inexpensively. (and you can almost always get a reduced price ticket in the first quarter). Depends on what you want to spend your money on. Our family treats it as a vacation expense. And really, if you are traveling to a game over several hundred miles, it makes sense, because it's an investment of a couple of days. Sure, it's not as expensive as dropping on on one of 81 home baseball games, but given the popularity and demand, what do you expect.

[pbmax]

I agree that suspension with pay is not enough for certain transgressions. But it is not a catch all for a proper punishment. It should only be used temporarily to do due diligence. To be consistent in the application of justice. No one is ever going to agree on the proper level of punishment, but certain facts must be ascertained and evaluated and some kind of ranking must be done. Then a punishment meted out that includes the time served on suspension with pay according to a known schedule.

If you repeatedly follow your own rules, you immediately reduce the number of complaints by more than half. Wouldn't it help the NFL if the players were behind the policy they way they are on PEDs? And if the League did this for a number of years, it could collect something known as data and determine whether this was working or not and tweak it based on actual evidence rather than who gets more airtime on Mike and Mike and First Take.

I don't agree that "activists" are pushing this on the League. The League is trying to avoid this hitting the 6 O'clock news and hurting its reputation. And its most concerned, as vince pointed out, not with me but with more marginal viewers, most of whom are women. The only way that rep gets hurt is if the NFL appears to have no idea what to do, or has a crisis, which is exactly the situation when Goodell first formulated this idiotic policy in 2007, but is only half true now.

For years baseball was able to leave punishment to the League Presidents and no one cared because they were predictable, everyone knew what the rules were. Goodell is just collecting authority, he still doesn't have a plan.

They are 20 years behind other large firms and corporations in how they deal with this. Probably because they have very few female employees, so the issue was not often raised internally and the issue was less likely to hit their radar within their own ranks.

Once you have a policy and a track record of using it effectively and making changes based on actual results, they you no longer are vulnerable to activists or the media, you become an authority on how not to simply accept domestic violence among your workforce as inevitable. And the players accused have access to some due process and for the love of Pete Rozelle, an actual independent Appeals process.

[vince]

Yeah I think everyone can agree there are no winners in these situations no matter what course is taken. A more formal and agreed upon policy would be good, as long as it doesn't hamstring the league depending on specific circumstances or which way the social winds are blowing over time. The popularity of the game is at an all-time high I'd say but pile a few major catastrophic events related to the violent physical nature of the game like increasing evidence of long-term brain damage to players, another Darrell Stanley/Barrett Robbins incident or two, along with declining youth participation...,

The NFL obviously leans overwhelmingly black relative to the population at large. Some civil unrest that spills into/involves the NFL and one or more high-profile players. Who knows what could happen but the league needs flexibility to protect itself and the huge financial benefits to playing are pretty strong motivators for the players to rally around while the temptation to leave those who find themselves in legal trouble to fend for themselves (It'll never happen to me) are probably overwhelming to the players as a whole.

Maybe a false indictment or a gross error by the league will change that but I don't think the Peterson situation even comes close to that.

[woodbuck27]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...picion-of-dui/

Report: Colts LB Andrew Jackson arrested on suspicion of DUI

Posted by Mike Wilkening on January 24, 2015, 12:55 PM EST

[woodbuck27]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...n-and-assault/

Report: Warren Sapp arrested for solicitation and assault

Posted by Josh Alper on February 2, 2015, 3:25 PM EST

Comment woodbuck27:

This one deserves it's own thread. It's up there.



I'll likely not have to watch this creep anymore on the NFL network.

Isn't it something the way life gets around to fucking .... Fuckers !