Player Behavior Confusion

Today Cowboys defensive back Orlando Scandrick was suspended for four games for violation of the league's drug policy.  The drug in question appears to be MDMA.

It wasn't too long ago that Ray Rice beat his fiancee unconscious.

In San Francisco, Aldon Smith has been nailed on not one, but two DUIs.  He also has a little issue with weapons charges and oh yeah, he made a bomb threat at an airport.

While none of these guys deserve a pass it appears increasingly clear that while the NFL will "discipline" all of them, the league is endorsing this behavior with the way their owners

operate.

In Dallas, photos were recently released showing Jerry Jones in a situation right out of Bill Clinton's playbook with two local stripper.  Jerry Jones has repeatedly demonstrated that money can not buy class and right now he looks like a rube from Arkansas who came into money.

Jones, who has his own drinking problem, is all too ready to bring back Josh Brent -  a player who killed a team mate because he couldn't handle his alcohol issues.  How can Mr. Jones expect Josh Brent to handle gap assignments when he can not seem to handle basic life assignments?

Of course when we come to alcohol and the NFL, it is hard to look past Jim Irsay.  Irsay was busted for DUI.  He was found with multiple prescription pain killers and $30,000 in cash in his car despite his alleged girlfriend dying of an overdose just two weeks prior.  I am not a police officer, but in my world this amounts to what you might call a clue.

Where is Commissioner Goodell on all this?  I have yet to hear public comments saying this behavior is inappropriate.  Worse, his own Vice President of Officiating, Dean Blandino, was seen recently on the Cowboys Party Bus headed to Bootsy Bellows nightclub.  Needless to say, other NFL and team executives were less than impressed and called the decision a "total lack of judgement."

The point is the NFL will throw the book at players for a sneeze in the wrong direction or say a player dunking a ball over a goal post, but they don't seem to have the heart to deal with their owners and executives who can't seem to keep it together.

The NFL seems confused by why they have a player behavior problem.  I'm not confused at all.

NFL And Booze

Am I wrong or is the NFL fueled by alcohol?  Budweiser, Miller/Coors, and even Sam Adams seem to be as omnipresent with the NFL as Ford, Dodge, and Viagra.  (By the way, does anyone else find it odd that a rough and tumble sport that intimates they are the be all, end all when it comes to manhood has to advertise a prescription pill to...support your manhood?)

I am not sure what is more common that the issue of alcohol in the NFL, but I am open to hearing it.  Whether it be the athlete or the executive, it seems that the NFL can not operate without someone acting like, or actually being, a drunk.

While Major League Baseball has struggled with steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, the NFL mostly scoffs at the idea of handling it.  Instead, inebriation, either through repeated head trauma or through alcohol is the cross the NFL must carry.

In the last year alone there were at least seventeen incidents involving players being arrested for DUI, public intoxication, or other assorted alcohol related offenses.  Seventeen!  And this does not even include the January 22, 2013 arrest of Dallas Cowboys' defensive linesman Jay Ratliff who was popped only a few months after team mate Josh Brent killed his team mate Jerry Brown.  An important note in the Brent case, this was not his first DUI offense either.  Instead, he was arrested during his college playing days and clearly did not learn his lesson then.

Don't think I only blame the players because the executives have gotten in on the action too.  As you watch the Super Bowl and think about the various alcohol ads, don't forget that your Denver Broncos have an executive who had a 0.246 Blood Alcohol Concentration, or three times the legal limit anywhere.

Maybe it is my career choice, but I have seen gallons of blood over the years spilled on our highways because of the gallons of alcohol that consumers didn't control.  These personal choices have real and serious consequences and it would be nice if the NFL would stop talking about alcohol abuse and start doing something about it.