A sea of change in the NFL’s attitude toward off-the-field behavior occurred with the succession from Paul Tagliabue to Roger Goodell as commissioner. With the now-awkward phrase of ‘‘a new sheriff in town’’ being trumpeted at the time, the Personal Conduct Policy received universal praise for its get-tough policy toward NFL bad boys. Andrew Brandt
A sea of change in the NFL’s attitude toward off-the-field behavior occurred with the succession from Paul Tagliabue to Roger Goodell as commissioner. With the now-awkward phrase of ‘‘a new sheriff in town’’ being trumpeted at the time, the Personal Conduct Policy received universal praise for its get-tough policy toward NFL bad boys.
Now two years into the policy, the question has to be asked: “Is it working?” The policy has noble objectives in attempting to curtail behavior that brings ill repute and shakes public confidence in the league, its teams and its players. The league wants to send a message to all players that unsavory conduct will be met with discipline, no matter the excuses and legal defenses involved. And the league wants a deterrent effect to other players regarding behavior that will not be tolerated.
Under Tagliabue, who is an attorney, discipline was held until the player’s legal status wended its way through the system, where it would result in a conviction, plea, acquittal, diversionary program, etc. Players knew they would not be subject to suspension as long as they had not received due process from the legal system.
No longer. Now the facts of a player conduct issue, gleaned from police reports and accounts from witnesses and the player himself, is enough for Commissioner Goodell to impose discipline. At the Packers, we experienced the first example of this when Koren Robinson was suspended from the NFL for one year based on police report information about his use of alcohol. Although Koren had a defense to the DUI on which he was charged – a DUI that was later thrown out – the information from the police report was enough for a year-long suspension from then-new Commissioner Goodell.
Players are now routinely disciplined according to the Personal Conduct Policy without regard for where their case is in the legal process. Plaxico Burress will be the next to have such punishment while his case is pending.
Speaking of Burress, he has become, along with Pacman Jones, the poster child for the policy. Due to the high-profile nature of Burress and the team he plays for – the league’s best team in the country’s biggest market – there is considerably more attention on this latest off-field incident than there is on the Giants’ impressive on-field performance on Sunday (other than they played well in spite of the distraction). It has become a rare week this season when we are not seeing national headlines not involving Burress or Jones.
Which, of course, brings us back to the question of whether the policy is working or not. The goals of the policy – to restore the integrity of the league and its players, to foster a player product that conducts itself with professionalism and respect for the NFL shield off the field – are admirable, but they do not appear to be working due to the inability of players to curb this behavior. With high-profile players being the biggest repeat offenders of the policy – Burress, Jones, Michael Vick, Larry Johnson, etc. – combined with 24-hour coverage of the nation’s most popular sports league, the aim of the Personal Conduct Policy is being subverted by the actions of a few and the coverage of these incidents.
Perhaps more important, the NFLPA will eventually have its say about the policy. When it was implemented in 2006, then-executive director Gene Upshaw went along with it as a gesture of mutual interest in cleaning up the image of the players. Now, as one union official told me, Upshaw would have some real problems with it if he were alive today. Union leaders feel that discipline is getting to be out of control, and this issue cries out for addressing in the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations.
Thus, the policy continues with the wrong kind of attention focused on it. Good intentions have become mired in sensationalistic, police-blotter headlines about incorrigible players like Burress and Jones, giving the wrong kind of attention to a policy that seemed to have so much promise.
Goodell's problem here is two-fold. First, by going too far with fines for on-field conduct, he's losing credibility on the Personal Conduct Policy. Second, by focusing on monetary penalties, he's targeting something the affected players don't care much about. Anything other than suspensions, whether it be for personal conduct or for on-field conduct, is not going to achieve the desired result. If the offense isn't enough to justify a suspension, then the leauge shouldn't be dealing with it. It won't stop every issue, but teams want players who will be available for 16 games. Fines don't matter to people like this.
The conduct policy is utter baloney. Quite a few coaches know that if you wink, you win. So they wink.
Last week Wes Welker got a hospital trip in a clear non-football play. Pittsburgh's defensive play improved markedly with Welker off the field. The week before, Channing Crowder stuck both hands into Matt Light's eyes on a field goal try. Vince Wilfork rang up a pattern of violent acts. Tom Brady went down for the year when a defensive player got his helmet to where Brady's knee would be. Was it all accident? Rodney Harrison used to call his fines a business expense.
If we move to suspending individual players, the 53rd player on the team will carry the crowbar onto the field.
Only penalizing the offending team will work. The offending team should pay 20% of the injured player's salary out of their own next year's salary cap, with a raised salary cap for the victimized team. Also, the offending team should lose draft choices to the victimized team.
Paul--
Interesting ideas...
Andrew
Paul - not necessarily a bad idea but would be horrendously subjective and open up a variety of cans of worms. Draft choices are not a bad idea but the salary-based fine approach would never work because salaries vary dramatically. Applying fines to cap dollars though - that could have a significant impact for a lot of teams.
However, in a case like Welker's, do you really think that a four game suspension (rolling over to the following year if necessary) including forfeit of salary would not cause players to adjust what they're doing? If we consider the second offense for smoking a joint to be worth four games, why not a flagrant cheap shot? Don't even allow contact with the team during the period. I'd work it on an escalating scale - first offense, one game, second gets two, third gets four, fourth gets eight, fifth gets one full year, any others gets a permanent ban from the league.
Goodell's "policy" is a disaster. First of all its enforcement is entirely subjective (Koren Robinson suspended for a year before the facts are in, but Matt Jones STILL has yet to miss a game for BLOWING LINES OF COKE in his truck?). By putting the cart before the legal horse (sometimes - see above) Goodell risks making huge mistakes. We have a legal system PRECISELY because the appearance doesn't always match reality.
Doesn't it seem weird that so many more black players get brought up on weapons charges compared to white players? Do you think white guys don't like guns?
Isn't it possible that it is because a black man driving a fancy vehicle is MUCH more likely to be harassed by the police? How many times do you think white players have been pulled over only to sign a few autographs and be on their way? The city of Cincinnatti erupted in riots just a few years ago because of the rampant "driving while black" arrests. But we assume that it is MARVIN LEWIS' fault that so many black Bengals get arrested?
The fact is that in this country black men (especially young, rich black men) are targets of the police. Rich white guys are not. The commissioner's ignorance of these facts is making the NFL's image problem worse, not better.
Don't get me wrong, Plaxico should not have brought a loaded gun into that club. But I have a feeling that if it was Bret Favre up on weapons charges we'd be hearing a hell of a lot more from the NRA.
Can you imagine if Favre were black? His career would have been over years ago. Green Bay would have been forced to cut him for his drug problem, and every time his performance faltered there would be "whispers" that Favre's "troubled past" was returning. He'd be Quincy Carter. Radioactive.
Tagliabue had it right: defend the players until the law has its say. It's the only fair way to do it. I know we have a black president-elect, but racism is still real, and it is still everywhere.
Honestly, can you IMAGINE if Matt Jones was black? Do you really think he'd have his charges reduced to a slap on the wrist? Do you really think he wouldn't have missed a game yet? Really?
when do you think chirs Laundy is going to steal your work today ?????
Juice-
I'm hoping he'll do the right thing and own up.
Andrew
Andrew - he hasn't yet, according to PFT he whipped the ole "Mom's hurt so I've been out of the loop and will need to look into this" line. If you go back through Landry's archives, it's patently obvious he's been doing this for some time.
For anyone doubting whose copying who (since Andrew and Mike may not be able to talk about this), if you check out Mike's Tavern Talk posted on November 17th (http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2008/11/national-football-post-tavern-talk-64/) and compare it to Landry's posting on November 21st, four days later, (http://www.sportsnet.ca/football/nfl/2008/11/21/landry_the_scouts_notebook/), you will find entire paragraphs from Mike's stats section copied verbatim.
Having friends in the police force at the precinct that chased and subsequently arrested Mr. Robinson, I have to say that it is a travesty that the DUI was thrown out of court.
Because Goodell cannot rely on our court system to bring justice, he needs to administer it himself. I have no problem with that. Work and law are two separate places. If I was accused of abusing a child, fled police and later was shown lots of evidence of doing so (such as being on tape doing it - akin to a breathlizer or blood alcohol test), I would be fired from teaching, even if the charge was later dropped/changed. In my opinion, that is definitely the way it should be.
"Beacause Goodell cannot rely on our court system to bring justice, he needs to administer it himself." Steve, I don't know what your country's traditions are, but I was brought up in the United States of America, where we have certain inalienable rights.
One is the right to a presumption of innocence, and another is the right to a trial by jury. I realize that these rights have been left to wither lately, but the thing about inalienable rights, human rights, is that they cannot be denied by men.
Roger Goodell is the commissioner of the NFL. The NFL is business. He emphatically has no right to "administer justice." His tyranny (and the tyranny of the NFL as a whole) has led NFL players to their only recourse: the courts.
This wasn't inevitable. Goodell overreached. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
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Dec 02, 2008
12:42 PM
It seems to me that the PCP has had the effect of really opening up the gates with respect to media coverage of alleged player misconduct. Under the prior regime, there was at least certainty that discipline would not be imposed until after the charges wended their way through the legal system. It wasn't always pretty, but at least the media knew that there was little point in haranguing the issue. Now, the bare allegations against a player are enough to trigger a media frenzy demanding immediate discipline.
I think the Pacman Jones incident provides the perfect illustration to my theory. This was a situation involving a fight between Jones and a team employee. We don't know (and probably never will) what went down to bring that fight about. But under the previous PCP, the commish would have deferred from acting until the resolution of the charges. In that case, there obviously were no charges filed. The whole incident would have been worth maybe two news cycles. But instead, we get endless news cycles speculating about what the commish is going to do, BASED UPON THE ALLEGATIONS, SPECULATION,AND RUMOR. As a result, there is much more media attention paid to minor misconduct issues.
As for the hope that the PCP will act as a true deterrent to misconduct, it is probably too early to say. But it seems to me that as long as you have young men with large amounts of cash in their pocket, who are often targets in their own right, it seems likely that you will have the potential for trouble. You can't expect to turn all these guys into homebodies.