NFL struggles to be proactive

In the past two years the NFL has seen an alarming rise in off-the field issues involving its players. Some of the most notable ones are the Ray Rice elevator incident and Ray McDonald’s sexual assault cases. The NFL has worked in the past few years to eliminate the risk of concussions and the frequency of which they occur. Numerous changes to the rulebook have been added to protect players and to provide evidence that the league is working towards eliminating the issue. We can applaud the NFL in their efforts to lower to improve player safety, but sadly, we cannot say the same about its effort on maintaining player discipline off the field.

Last off season the league experience a string of domestic abuse including an incident involving running back Adrian Peterson and one of his children. The league and the commissioner, Roger Goodell, were under heavy criticism because of the poor way the league handled its cases of domestic abuse involving its players. This off-season Greg hardy will be returning to the football field as a Dallas Cowboy, but not without the league handing down a ten game suspension for his involvement on a domestic abuse case last year. The biggest problem the NFL had last year during the stretch of off the field issues was the way in which the league was handling their punishments for these players. The league was presented with an opportunity to be proactive this time around. The league handed him a 10 game suspension to essentially punish his actions, which were labeled “detrimental to the league”.

In the end, the NFL has done many things to curve its public perception on player safety and they have worked for the most part. Unfortunately, This change came only after public demand for a change. Now that the NFL faces a new issue that it must be taken care of I can’t help but wonder if they will ever be proactive about issues, which are essentially “detrimental to the league.