Friday, April 13, 2012

Dumber Than Politicians

I have finally found someone whose jackassery exceeds that of politicians; NFL football players, who are asserting that the NFL should not punish players involved in the “bounty program” with as much severity as it punished coaches and ownership, because… Well the “because” part is gibberish. At the risk of being impolitic, I think these guys have had their bells rung a few times too many.

One reason given is that players “now really know that the NFL will not tolerate this.” Oh, please. As the moderator pointed out, how do they “really know” that if the NFL does not punish them severely? More to the point, if the NFL does not severely punish the player participants, then the NFL actually will be tolerating this behavior.

Then one bonehead suggests that suspensions for coaches are okay because “their careers last for decades,” but suspensions for players would be unfair because a player’s career “is only ten or twelve years long.” Again two points refute this supremely silly argument.

First is that a player’s career is that short due to physical abuse received while playing. If he is suspended he is not playing, so his career is not shortened, it is merely delayed. If he had ten years of playing time left, he will still have ten years playing time left, it merely will be the years spanning 2013-2023 instead of 2012-2022.

Secondly is that if a player is suspended that is not result of some cruel treatment being imposed by the league, it is the result of the player indulging in illegal behavior. The way to avoid losing a year’s playing time is not to commit crimes.

These boneheads are suggesting, in effect, that if I were to hire someone to murder my ex-wife then I should be imprisoned for life for hiring the killer, but the person who committed the actual killing should get a slap on the wrist. Perhaps professional killers have shorter careers than computer programmers, or some such nonsense.

The NFL established a great deal of credibility with its reaction to the exposure of the Saints’ bounty program, now it remains to be seen whether the Players Association will be able to do the same. For the sake of the game I hope they do better than the two clowns who were on ESPN today.

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