- Joined
- Oct 17, 2007
- Messages
- 11,862
- Reaction score
- 10,300
- Location
- New York
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
My problem with the NFL has been the frantic reaction to the reaction, which shows a lack of leadership and belief in their convictions.
Even as we disagree on the appropriate suspension (I believe a much lengthier one was warranted), the NFL's reaction stems from the lack of a policy to deal with such cases. The NFL never brought in experts to help design policies related to such cases, even as the Ray Rice incident was not the NFL's first-such case. As a result, its approach has been ad hoc. Had the NFL had a set of policies, including penalties, let's say X game suspension for the first case, Y games or even a lifetime ban for the second, then implemented the terms of the policy, there would have been far less fallout. After all, the NFL could then have pointed out that its system was designed by experts in dealing with domestic abuse.
It should be noted that many companies have well-defined policies for such circumstances. That the NFL, which has had past incidents among various players, apparently had none is a leadership failure. All the attention this very real problem is now drawing has detracted from the efforts and example of the NFL's majority of players who do not engage in domestic abuse, child abuse, or other crimes.