I think we are trying to hold the NFL to a higher standard than the rest of society. I am very anti domestic violence, but the hypocrisy is running rampant here....Its proof that 90% of society is ok with putting their heads in the sand about the issue unless caught on video.
Goodell is not the only hypocrite in this case.
This is 100% correct. The truth is there are quite a few players who have had domestic violence issues, and who generally have not been punished very hard by the league. Sometimes, not at all. And I'd point out this reflects the problem society at large has at dealing with this problem, where a lot of court systems believe that so-called first offenders are best placed in some sort of counseling/intervention program rather than prosecuted criminally. Especially if the victim pushes for that. And nobody seemed to care all that much about it.
The punishment Goodell imposed initially was consistent with how such matters had been handled in the past, and was actually a more harsh punishment than that imposed even by the criminal justice system. But it became a "cause", and all of a sudden, being relatively consistent with what had been done previously now was a horrible error. The video -- which did not change the actual
facts as understood one bit -- came out and the expectation became 16 game/indefinite ban.
So when Rice's situation first happened, should Goodell have just adopted a rule saying "domestic violence = permaban", and just handled it that way? Because moving forward, how can he do anything but that if he wishes to avoid another feeding frenzy from the cause-of-the-moment press and public?
Goodell's biggest mistake -- and it was a big one -- was insisting that he have sole authority over these kind of discipline issues. He's not God, and considering how often a full-fledged justice system gets it wrong, expecting the NFL to get these off-field issues "right" was just arrogance.
There should be an independent arbitrator to review these things. That way, the Commissioner can simply issue 16 game suspensions for essentially everything, and then let union outrage and an arbitrator rein it in. Goodell was a fool for setting the NFL as an entity up to be criticized like this for going too easy. Given how flighty public opinion can be, and how something that gets sensasionalized in the media can flip the rules for what is ""appropriate", that was a stupid mistake.
