Image Is Everything

Remember those Canon commercials with Andre Agassi from the early 90s?  The ones with the tagline "Image is everything?"  It's pretty clear that the NFL doesn't.  Because the most image-conscious league of them all has a serious image problem on its hands.  And what's worse, they seem completely unable or unwilling to do something about it.

From Josh Gordon to Ray Rice to Greg Hardy to Adrian Peterson, no news is good news coming out of the NFL right now.  Yet Roger Goodell is nowhere to be seen.  He's letting the inmates run the asylum.

The NFL's personal conduct policy was put into place for situations like these.  Things that take place off the playing field, but are serious enough to warrant league discipline.  Goodell alone has the power to suspend players under the personal conduct policy, and he sure didn't hesitate to use that power once it was given to him.  But ever since he went overboard on the penalties for the Saints players involved in Bountygate, he's been hesitant to drop the hammer.  Even in the situations where it's most warranted.

Of course, Bountygate isn't the only situation where Goodell has blown it.  Even he has admitted that giving Rice only a two-game suspension was far too lenient.  Especially now that that video has been released.  How is it possible that he never saw the actual video from inside the elevator before TMZ leaked it?  Not only does he look soft, he looks totally clueless or, worse, blissfully ignorant.  It was only after the extended video came out that Goodell extended Rice's suspension indefinitely.  Rice will appeal on the grounds that he's being punished a second time for the same offense.  As much as Ray Rice has no place in the NFL right now, I actually think his appeal has some merit.  This isn't new evidence.  It's just evidence that nobody bothered to find before.  Regardless, Ray Rice doesn't have a team to play for (because the Ravens did the right thing and released him), so it really doesn't matter if he's technically allowed to play in the NFL or not.

Then there's Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy.  Hardy didn't play last week in wake of his July 15 conviction for assaulting and threatening a woman.  But the decision to deactivate him was made by the Panthers.  The NFL hasn't said "Boo" about the Greg Hardy situation.

At least the Panthers did the right thing by deactivating Hardy and keeping him out until who knows when.  That's more than I can say for the Minnesota Vikings.  Because it's an absolute joke that Adrian Peterson will be allowed to participate in a professional football game on Sunday.  What Peterson did is worse than what Ray Rice did.  He hit a four-year-old child.  With a switch.  Hard enough to warrant charges being pressed against Peterson in Texas.  And it wasn't the first time! 

Peterson's punishment for all this?  One game.  He had to sit out the Vikings' home opener against the Patriots on Sunday, but will be back in uniform when Minnesota plays New Orleans next week.  (And don't get me started on how wrong and disturbing it was that Vikings fans made a joke of it by showing up to the Patriots game wearing Peterson jerseys and carrying tree branches.)

Contrast all three of these situations to that of Josh Gordon.  Gordon is currently suspended for the entire year.  For smoking pot.  There's more to it than that, but essentially, it's because he failed a test for marijuana, which was his second failed test.  And that's where Goodell's critics get their most ammunition.  Gordon gets 16 games for getting high, Rice gets two! for beating his fiancée, Peterson gets NONE for beating his child.  It looks like Gordon's suspension will probably get reduced to eight games, but that hardly seems to matter.  The point remains.

Now, don't get be wrong.  I do believe that Gordon deserved to be suspended.  He was, after all, arrested for engaging in an illegal activity.  But I don't think there's a single person out there who thinks what Josh Gordon did is even remotely close to in the same league as what Rice, Hardy and Peterson did.  Yet Gordon gets suspended for the whole season and the other three get a slap on the wrist?  Something doesn't add up here.

Perhaps the biggest problem with all of this is the clear double standard being set.  Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice are superstars, so they get off easy.  Josh Gordon is a "problem," so the hammer comes down on him for what, in comparison, is a minor offense (which isn't even illegal everywhere).  If we want to take the double standard a step further, Colts owner Jim Irsay was booked for a DUI over the summer...and he was only banned for six games (or, 10 less than Josh Gordon).  Shouldn't the owners should be held to a higher standard than the players?

Simply put, Roger Goodell doesn't get it.  I'll give him credit for admitting he dropped the ball on Ray Rice, but where's he been with the other guys?  And that domestic violence policy the NFL drafted during the Rice fallout was too little, too late.  Sponsors are falling by the wayside and every NFL-related headline is negative.  Yet he can't come out and say what everyone else is already thinking. 

The NFL has a serious problem on its hands, and it needs to get fixed.  ASAP.  It's times like these when a good leader leads.  Take Adam Silver with Donald Sterling.  Yet with his league's and his own reputation at stake, Roger Goodell says and does nothing.  That says all you need to know.