Hansen torches Cowboys, NFL

Dale Hansen has brought the rhetorical pain on the Dallas Cowboys for hiring Greg Hardy, who was involved in a domestic dispute for beating his girlfriend, threatening to kill her and then paying her off to simply disappear:

Hardy was convicted of assault and sending death threats this past summer. And now, he will be playing football for the Cowboys, who will pay him a handsome $11.3 million. Meanwhile, the Cowboys, and the NFL more broadly, have relinquished any remaining scruples to which they were still feebly clinging. After Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, the NFL’s track record on domestic violence is indefensible.

On the Ray Rice appeal

Although NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell handed down an indefinite suspension against former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice after video evidence was released showing that Rice had indeed knocked out his now-wife Janey Rice back in February at a casino in Las Vegas, one can understand from a technical standpoint why former U.S. District Court judge and arbiter in the case, Barbara Jones, lifted the suspension, even if the offense itself seems to warrant harsher discipline than just missing two football games.

I thought it was interesting that a female arbiter presided over the case and ruled in Rice’s favor, even if I don’t agree with the decision. In August, largely in response to public ire over the Rice’ minimal two-game punishment, Goodell modified the NFL’s policy to stipulate that domestic abuse offenders would be suspended for at least six games on a first offense and indefinitely for a second occurrence, although he failed to make Rice accountable based on this new policy. Not until September after the video evidence was released did Goodell pass along the indefinite suspension. Therefore, in Jones’ eyes, this decision appeared inconsistent.

Here’s the crux of Jones’ reasoning:

Because Rice did not mislead the commissioner and because there were no new facts on which the commissioner could base his increased suspension, I find that the imposition of the indefinite suspension was arbitrary. I therefore vacate the second penalty imposed on Rice.

I agree that the decision appeared to be arbitrary based on NFL policy, but shouldn’t Goodell as commissioner have the power and prerogative to modify the punishment when new evidence is brought to bear in a case? We can debate whether Goodell saw the video evidence before September — I happen to think he did and only increased the punishment when it became public — but should it not be within a commissioner’s purview to act on a case-by-case basis when evidence makes it more likely, actually somewhere near 100 percent, that the offender in question actually committed an egregious crime against a woman?

In any case, I’m not sure whether to feel sorry for Janay Rice for supporting her husband through this whole noxious affair or castigate her as being woefully delusional to think that Rice can’t or won’t potentially act out again, against her or against another woman. In my experience, only two people exist in domestic relationships: abusers and non-abusers, and abusers are, in general, more likely than not to strike again. I’m not saying Rice will get in trouble again. I hope he doesn’t, and I hope he is sincerely reformed, but the germ of abuse, once mixed with decision-impairing alcohol, is hard to snuff out.

Ray Rice case and Roger Goodell’s failure

In this now notorious press conference, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell went on and on about the NFL’s lack of clear and consistent policies related to discipline and personal conduct that apparently haven’t been updated since 2007.

Seems like Goodell has had been plenty of time since then to revisit and modify any policies he deemed insufficient. Why were such important policies not being reviewed every year? The NFL certainly takes pains to review every nuance about the rules on the football field each season. Not even taking into account the Ray Rice debacle, seems like this oversight alone would be grounds for termination. Further, how does a league with an entire legal department at its disposal not know that you don’t conduct interviews with the victim and abuser in the same room?

There’s just so many elements in this case that don’t add up, and I think that, in part, fueled Bill Simmons’ also notorious tirade against Goodell. It’s clear to anyone paying attention that either Goodell, NFL executives, the Ravens or all three, have not been completely forthcoming with what they knew and when they knew it. Simmons, with perhaps a little too much impropriety in calling out the corporate suits at ESPN, just had the balls to say what everyone was already thinking.

And frankly, with the exception of Simmons — and it will be interesting to see what he has to say, if anything, once he returns from suspension — I can’t say that I trust the credibility of other ESPN employees commenting on the NFL because of the sports channel’s cozy partnership with the league on “Monday Night Football.”