Every season it comes out that A player of XYZ team did this or that to his significant other at one point in time. It is frustrating because what's being done is not enough and not right. The NFL has no problem handing out fines and penalties for stupid stuff like end zone celebrations or banning teams from creating .gifs from the game and using them on Twitter, but how the league handles domestic violence is ridiculous, and how fans handle the accusations is just as bad. Fans call for suspensions and bans from the league, which in their mind is the right thing to do, and honestly, so did I. However, this only furthers the cycle of victims being unable to escape their situations because they are worried that if they come forward, their abuser will lose their job. This fear makes it harder to come out and report or say anything. Katie Nolan does a better job of explaining it than I could, and her piece of why cutting Josh Brown won't help the league made everything a lot more clear.
Let's talk more about Josh Brown, the former kicker for the New York Giants. Brown was arrested in 2015 for abusing his wife at the time. The league, doing the right thing, investigated the matter. The league, doing the wrong thing, blamed the victim and suspended Brown for one game. One game. The man assaulted his wife ten times. And it gets worse. The Giants knew this happened. Brown admitted to abusing his wife to the team, and they still kept him on. As the news got bigger and more and more fans became enraged, the Giants did release him once more information was released, but does that fix the fact that they were aware of that the abuse happened and still signed him?
This isn't the first time something like this has happened in the league as we all know. Greg Hardy came back to the league after allegations of domestic violence came up against him. The Panthers dropped him, and then Cowboys signed him while the investigations were going on. Then Jason Garrett had the audacity to be frustrated with Hardy's attitude on and off the field. What did he expect? His team signed an abuser. While the charges against Hardy were expunged, the pictures of his ex-girlfriend should be enough to know that he was not a good person to have around a team. Michael Vick spent 21 months in jail for running a dogfighting ring, yet so many of the players who have committed abuse against women get a minor suspension (Brown served a one game suspension, and Hardy's 10 game suspension was dropped to four.) and get to keep playing until there is enough outrage that the team and the league are basically forced to release the player.
When the league created the "zero-tolerance" policy, something that most considered to only be a PR stunt, after the Ray Rice allegations and mess, I hoped that maybe something would have changed. I think a lot of people hoped that it could have been a step in the right direction. But like Katie Nolan said, zero-tolerance policies can be more harmful than helpful. Also, what good is a zero-tolerance policy if the league picks and chooses when it is appropriate to implement it? If the NFL wanted to be helpful, they would start putting in the right programs to help their players but not only that, to also help the victims. By cutting players, the NFL isn't really doing anything to fix the problem. Just because the problem is no longer seen doesn't mean it no longer exists. The NFL has a responsibility to its players and the players' families to make a change that will actually be beneficial.
How the league treats women and domestic violence is unacceptable. Every October they want to pretend that they care. Everything is pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, and the NFL tries to support women by donating money to research. Guess what? October is also Domestic Violence Awareness month, and how they league treats domestic violence cases does not make me want to continue to be a fan. In the words of Annie Apple, New York Giants' Eli Apple's mom, "There are times when certain things are more important than your personal comfort or the game of football."