Random NFL comments/thoughts

[buddha]

4 hours ago, Hongbit said:

I’m not exactly sure how it all went down last year with the Texans and the timing of when he asked for the trade and when the seriousness of the allegations came out making him virtually untradeable with looming criminal charges.    I think he was pissed because they traded all their vets and didn’t want to be a part of their rebuild and would’ve gotten his wish had he not completely fucked things up by getting exposed as a sexual predator. 

he played an entire season after they got rid of their vets and won 4 games.

[RandyMarsh]

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/34348525/los-angeles-rams-coach-sean-mcvay-says-matthew-stafford-elbow-pain-abnormal-quarterback

Now that Staff has his ring I wouldn't be heartbroken if he misses time or is ineffective this year and the Rams lose bc of it.

[Motown Bombers]

I wanted Stafford to go and win a Super Bowl to prove all the haters wrong. He did it. My grieving process is over. It's time to move on and what's best for the Lions is for the Rams to lose as many games as possible. 

[Motor City Sonics]

21 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I wanted Stafford to go and win a Super Bowl to prove all the haters wrong. He did it. My grieving process is over. It's time to move on and what's best for the Lions is for the Rams to lose as many games as possible. 

Stafford misses the season and John Wolford becomes the next Tom Brady.   Why?  Because it's the Lions, that's why. 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Motor City Sonics

[Tigeraholic1]

 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

23 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Stafford misses the season and John Wolford becomes the next Tom Brady.   Why?  Because it's the Lions, that's why. 

Wouldn't he be the next Kurt Warner since it's the Rams?

[Motor City Sonics]

Just now, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Wouldn't he be the next Kurt Warner since it's the Rams?

He's a lot younger than Kurt.........

[MichiganCardinal]

On 8/4/2022 at 3:18 PM, RedRamage said:

To me it often comes back to a matter of "crimes against the sport" vs. just "normal crimes."  And I know that this won't sit well with a number of people, but the NFL's job isn't to police and punish for "normal crimes."  If an NFL player goes out and drives drunk he should be held accountable for this crime the same way as if any ordinary joe drove drunk... the criminal justice system should punish that person.

Now, "crimes against the sport" are another thing. These things (generally speaking) are completely legal outside of the the sport.  Your average Joe and go and bet that his favorite team will lose its upcoming game... that's 100% legal (assuming he's doing it in a legal manner), no problems, no issues, no police, no court, no jail time or fines or anything.  If Tom Brady goes to a casino and bets on his team to lose... well, that's a major issue.  This is a "crime against the sport" and the league has to punish heavily because they are the only one who will.

Watson's accusers had their day(s) in court. The grand jury (where the prosecution lays out their case without the defense being able to say anything) didn't find enough evidence to indict. Many of the civil cases are settled. That's the courts punishing Watson for his "normal crimes" against society. Anything the NFL does on top of that is more window dressing and for PR reasons than anything else.

Having sat on this for a couple of days I tend to mostly agree with you. Initially I was put off on the concept of Watson “only” getting six games in comparison to Stephen Ross getting more. In hindsight though, there is no perfect formula you can put into a conduct policy. You can’t say “this many games for child abuse, this many for animal abuse, this many for domestic violence, take this many away if the victim doesn’t want us to proceed…” it gets way too convoluted and stupid, and you can see this clear as day with this case, where the NFL hired a former federal judge to rule on it, only to say “just kidding never mind” when they didn’t like the answer they got.

To say something I never thought I’d say….. the NFL can take a page from the NCAA on this one. Let the individual franchises (like individual schools) handle discipline for off-the-field conduct. The NFL needs to just stay out of it. If Jerry Jones, Jim Haslam, Robert Kraft, and Stephen Ross want to ‘okay’ their players being moral monsters off the field, that’s their prerogative until/unless the criminal justice system gets involved. If Virginia McCaskey and Sheila Ford want to be leaders of a moral, just, and community-minded organization, good on them. Teams can decide on an individual basis how to handle these issues, because it’s all gray area.

Where we differ I think is whether they should receive consequences. If I go out on any given weekend, drink a little too much, and get myself arrested for one thing or another, my employer could fire me or otherwise discipline me. My (imaginary) conduct reflects poorly on my employer. I do think the same should be true for professional athletes, as not only does Deshaun Watson’s conduct reflect poorly on the Texans and Browns, but you also have millions of kids who look up to him as a role model. They *should* be held to an even higher standard, in my mind. Handling that issue though should be the responsibility of the direct employer though - the ones who work with me day-in and day-out, the ones who maybe have all the context, and the ones who ultimately sign the paycheck. Not my boss’s oversight committee, who don’t interact with individual employees except to be this overarching nameless body… Under this system, we would see punishment in terms of games suspended go way down on these matters, but I promise those individual teams fans won’t mind - everyone cares about off-field conduct until it’s their guy. We may also see so-called “restorative justice” (e.g., guys doing community events and service as a part of their ”punishment”) go up, which also isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The NFL should still manage those integrity matters - tampering, cheating, gambling, etc… And those can and should be ruled with an iron fist. I don’t have an issue with Calvin Ridley being suspended a full year for gambling, but I don’t want it viewed in the same context of that entity also suspending Ezekiel Elliot six games, or Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice indefinitely, or not suspending Tyreek Hill.

Just my $0.02 though.

[RedRamage]

1 hour ago, MichiganCardinal said:

To say something I never thought I’d say….. the NFL can take a page from the NCAA on this one. Let the individual franchises (like individual schools) handle discipline for off-the-field conduct. The NFL needs to just stay out of it. If Jerry Jones, Jim Haslam, Robert Kraft, and Stephen Ross want to ‘okay’ their players being moral monsters off the field, that’s their prerogative until/unless the criminal justice system gets involved. If Virginia McCaskey and Sheila Ford want to be leaders of a moral, just, and community-minded organization, good on them. Teams can decide on an individual basis how to handle these issues, because it’s all gray area.

I think I could get on board with that.  You're right that the local team would have a better insight into what's going on and would be the ones to have to defend their actions more.  There are some risks involved in this for the whole league though.  Silly example, but let's say a Dolphin player murdered someone but gets off on a technicality (just go with it... I know it's a silly example).  The Dolphins say: "He wasn't found guilty by the court, so we're okay with getting him on the team."  You could end up with a protest against the league as a whole, not just the Dolphins.

Honestly, what might be the smartest thing to do is codify it in the CBA where certain classes of legal issues equal x-number of games automatically suspended, but have that number relatively low. Then (again codified in the CBA) allow the individual teams to punish above and beyond that at their sole discretion.  If those are the rules and they are spelled out in the CBA the NFL could at least say something like: "Listen, if it were up to us we'd say blah, blah, blah... but by rule it's a team decision.  We can recommend, but we can't force the action."

[MichiganCardinal]

45 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

I think I could get on board with that.  You're right that the local team would have a better insight into what's going on and would be the ones to have to defend their actions more.  There are some risks involved in this for the whole league though.  Silly example, but let's say a Dolphin player murdered someone but gets off on a technicality (just go with it... I know it's a silly example).  The Dolphins say: "He wasn't found guilty by the court, so we're okay with getting him on the team."  You could end up with a protest against the league as a whole, not just the Dolphins.

Honestly, what might be the smartest thing to do is codify it in the CBA where certain classes of legal issues equal x-number of games automatically suspended, but have that number relatively low. Then (again codified in the CBA) allow the individual teams to punish above and beyond that at their sole discretion.  If those are the rules and they are spelled out in the CBA the NFL could at least say something like: "Listen, if it were up to us we'd say blah, blah, blah... but by rule it's a team decision.  We can recommend, but we can't force the action."

I think you could still have some oversight on the part of the NFL, but it would be just that - oversight - with power being wielded exceedingly rarely. I think more likely than one player murdering someone and getting off, causing anarchy, you could have issues of a large number of off-the-field issues afflicting one single team in one particular offseason (i.e., on the Jaguars player A gets a DV charge, player B gets a DWI, player C murders someone, player D assaults someone at a club, etc.), where it's just chaos in one circle, Khan is clearly in over his head, and it's making the entire league look bad.

Akin to how the NCAA can levy "lack of institutional control" or the "death penalty" onto a member school, I can see a clause being that with a certain high amount of owner support (say 24/32 - the same for rule changes and forcing sales of teams), the other NFL owners can request the NFL step into a franchise and provide a higher level of oversight, including the power to themselves suspend players.

[buddha]

what if player a is accused of a crime but then exonerated by a grand jury?  does he still get suspended?

[MichiganCardinal]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

what if player a is accused of a crime but then exonerated by a grand jury?  does he still get suspended?

If you're asking for how my proposal would handle this, it would be on an individual by individual, and team by team basis.

A person who is accused of something they didn't do and is exonerated would likely be handled differently than a person who commits domestic violence, but whose wife or partner chooses not to appear, or assault, and the victim is paid, with the charges subsequently dropped or the grand jury failing to indict. I think it's all nuanced and hard to generalize.

In the former, I would expect most teams to stand by their player, be very transparent in what occurred, and not punish the player. In the latter, I'm sure some teams would (falsely) claim that as a full and complete exoneration and others would still give a rat's behind about the court of public opinion and give some sort of punishment. Either way it's better than Roger Goodell spinning a wheel and suspending the player for however many games it lands on.

[buddha]

45 minutes ago, MichiganCardinal said:

If you're asking for how my proposal would handle this, it would be on an individual by individual, and team by team basis.

A person who is accused of something they didn't do and is exonerated would likely be handled differently than a person who commits domestic violence, but whose wife or partner chooses not to appear, or assault, and the victim is paid, with the charges subsequently dropped or the grand jury failing to indict. I think it's all nuanced and hard to generalize.

In the former, I would expect most teams to stand by their player, be very transparent in what occurred, and not punish the player. In the latter, I'm sure some teams would (falsely) claim that as a full and complete exoneration and others would still give a rat's behind about the court of public opinion and give some sort of punishment. Either way it's better than Roger Goodell spinning a wheel and suspending the player for however many games it lands on.

i think the players will be judged by the court of public opinion no matter what they are accused of doing.  that's how it works now.

[MichiganCardinal]

22 minutes ago, buddha said:

i think the players will be judged by the court of public opinion no matter what they are accused of doing.  that's how it works now.

Absolutely. The question is whether the powers that be care enough to do something about it.

[RedRamage]

14 hours ago, buddha said:

what if player a is accused of a crime but then exonerated by a grand jury?  does he still get suspended?

I honestly hate that Watson settled with so many of the women.  I mean, I know it was the right thing for him to do to get the legal issues out of the way.  But it leaves so much uncertainty.  I'm not sure what to believe.  What we know is that he definitely made advances on the masseuses and some of the cases actions went further.  Watson claims any action that happened was consensual.  The accusing masseuses say it wasn't.  The reality is probably somewhere in the middle, but we just don't know.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

What about a Ray Rice situation where he knocks a girl out cold on an elevator and it's caught on camera, but the Justice system hasn't yet brought him to trial. What if a team is in the playoff hunt or in the playoffs and an incident like that comes to light. Are we really going to trust a team to suspend their own star player in the middle of a season, with the playoffs on the line? I barely trust the league to suspend a player in that type of a situation, much less their own team.

[buddha]

4 hours ago, RedRamage said:

I honestly hate that Watson settled with so many of the women.  I mean, I know it was the right thing for him to do to get the legal issues out of the way.  But it leaves so much uncertainty.  I'm not sure what to believe.  What we know is that he definitely made advances on the masseuses and some of the cases actions went further.  Watson claims any action that happened was consensual.  The accusing masseuses say it wasn't.  The reality is probably somewhere in the middle, but we just don't know.

$$$$$

[buddha]

2 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

What about a Ray Rice situation where he knocks a girl out cold on an elevator and it's caught on camera, but the Justice system hasn't yet brought him to trial. What if a team is in the playoff hunt or in the playoffs and an incident like that comes to light. Are we really going to trust a team to suspend their own star player in the middle of a season, with the playoffs on the line? I barely trust the league to suspend a player in that type of a situation, much less their own team.

how about quintez cephus?  are you ok with him being on the lions?

chauncey billups with the pistons?

[Mr.TaterSalad]

46 minutes ago, buddha said:

how about quintez cephus?  are you ok with him being on the lions?

chauncey billups with the pistons?

We're talking about different situations here. Billups' situation was before he was a Piston and I believe, before the start of his NBA career. As well, there wasn't clear evidence Billups was the perpetrator.

In the case of a Ray Rice, we have that on video tape. Same as we do for Joe Mixon. My concern is, if a team is in charge of disciplining their own players, and we end up getting clear and definitive evidence during the season that they are guilty of X, can we count on that team to suspend their own player if it could potentially have a significant effect on winning, playoffs, etc.?

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

We're talking about different situations here. Billups' situation was before he was a Piston and I believe, before the start of his NBA career. As well, there wasn't clear evidence Billups was the perpetrator.

In the case of a Ray Rice, we have that on video tape. Same as we do for Joe Mixon. My concern is, if a team is in charge of disciplining their own players, and we end up getting clear and definitive evidence during the season that they are guilty of X, can we count on that team to suspend their own player if it could potentially have a significant effect on winning, playoffs, etc.?

IIRC the Billups thing happened while he was with the Celtics and involved Antoine Walker and someone else. I'm pretty sure Billups and Walker settled out of court. 

It's not like the NFL handled the Ray Rice one well either. IIRC he was only suspended two games and then the video leaked and the NFL and Ravens were forced to suspend him longer. 

[buddha]

3 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

We're talking about different situations here. Billups' situation was before he was a Piston and I believe, before the start of his NBA career. As well, there wasn't clear evidence Billups was the perpetrator.

In the case of a Ray Rice, we have that on video tape. Same as we do for Joe Mixon. My concern is, if a team is in charge of disciplining their own players, and we end up getting clear and definitive evidence during the season that they are guilty of X, can we count on that team to suspend their own player if it could potentially have a significant effect on winning, playoffs, etc.?

what about cephus?  he was accused, denied it, went to criminal court and won an aquittal.  is that enough?

watson was sued in civil court, then criminal charges were taken to two grand juries, both of which did not choose to indict him.  

what's the difference?  because a jury believed cephus and not the women?  a grand jury didnt think watson committed a crime, so should be be suspended for effectively two years?

billups came into the league in 97 and was accused of rape the same year.  should he have been suspenses for a year because someone accused him of rape?

its a difficult question to answer for any league.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

My whole question is, with the league being as weak as it has been sometimes handing down punishments, can we count on teams to act appropriately and accordingly if they were in charge of discipling their own players?

[Motown Bombers]

Too bad the league couldn't have stepped in and nixed the hiring of Patricia when his accusation came out. 

[buddha]

4 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

My whole question is, with the league being as weak as it has been sometimes handing down punishments, can we count on teams to act appropriately and accordingly if they were in charge of discipling their own players?

i dont necessarily think the league should do anything for what players do in their private lives.  that's why we have a criminal and civil justice system.  unless the player is deemed to be a threat to others in the organization, what they do on their time is their own business.  

but i am an outlier in this, for sure.

[RandyMarsh]

It's only 1 preseason game and 1 preseason game against the terrible Seahawks at that but George Pickens looked like a total beast, before trading up for Jameson he's who I really wanted with either the Rams pick or our 2nd rounder. Hopefully Jameson will make us forget all about it cause I think George is going to be special.