Ethan Cox, Staff Writer
In the past couple of weeks the NFL has been dealing with multiple players being charged with acts of violence. These frequent occurrences have led NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the association to take immediate action.
Goodell announced his desire to improve the league's personal conduct policy. He has asked the NFLPA and others to help with the process. The NFL’s changes announced in late August included tougher penalties for domestic violence issues.
Several NFL players have been in the news for domestic violence arrests in recent weeks, including Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy. Rice is suspended indefinitely, while Peterson and Hardy were placed on the Commissioner's Permission List by the Viking and the Panthers.
"We will re-examine, enhance and improve all of our current programs, and then we'll do more," said Goodell at one of the many news conferences he has attended. He has made plenty of press releases yet hasn’t quite found it in him to do anything about the problem he is facing.
Many people have taken away from Goodell’s lengthy questions, answers and multiple apologies as him not knowing what he will do. Goodell believes that the 32 owners support him. He refuses to resign from being commissioner though there have been multiple calls for him to do so.
“If I was in Roger Goodall’s shoes, I personally would make rules to suspend players for the season,” NHS freshman Adam Bergeron said. Bergeron believes this would be a way to reduce the violence of players and is an appropriate punishment for the convicted felonies.
After the Ray Rice incident occurred in February, the NFL had plenty of time to come up with a fair punishment, which was a two game suspension. This led to many parts of the public being outraged at the lightness of the penalty. Goodell announced a new policy: a mandatory six-game suspension for a first incident of domestic violence.
I asked Newtown High School’s varsity football coach Steve George about his code of conduct and the punishment about breaking his rules. “Students must act in a professional and respectful way. If a player were to break these rules they would face limited playing time, sprints, suspension or removal from team,” George says.
The lack of regulations in the NFL will not just affect the players’ families, but the teams, the team’s owners, coaches, and subsequently, the whole NFL organization.
The long-term effects on football as a business if all 32 teams follow the short-term incentives include more negative media exposure and more customer outrage. The violent culture and lack of accountability of these people will ultimately and slowly destroy the NFL’s business.
The NFL’s problems are something any poorly regulated industry has to face. It may seem different because of the massiveness of the organization. The NFL isn’t a hotdog stand on the side of the road; it is a multimillion dollar company who has taken over cultures, TV schedules and a nameless amount of other larger deals.
Photo Credit; www.opposingviews.com
