By Brian Ishisaka, Staff writer
What a start to the NFL season, right? The Niners starting off slow, the Broncos not looking too good, and the Seahawks showing why they are the reigning league champions. Now of course that isn’t what’s on the mind of those who pay attention to news surrounding the NFL. That’s right- we’re talking about the recent disciplinary decisions made by the league.
For those who aren’t educated on the situation, the league has recently made some controversial decision that have banned or suspended players, and caused tempers to flare up at an all time high.
The first of a couple decisions that has caused controversy in the league is Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to ban former Baltimore Ravens running back, Ray Rice, for domestic violence towards his wife. Many of us heard the news a couple of months ago that Ray Rice had allegedly beaten up his wife in an elevator, which was publicized by TMZ. Upon news of this, the league thought about the situation and decided that the Raven’s running back would be suspended for the first two games of the season. Then about three weeks ago, another clip of footage from inside the elevator surfaced, showing Rice hitting his wife and knocking her unconscious. After seeing this new footage, Commissioner Goodell decided to kick Rice off of the Raven’s and ban him from the league indefinitely. Now let’s be realistic here- the league must have already known about the entire scene in and outside of the elevator. However, it wasn’t until TMZ released the actual footage of the running back punching his wife that they worsened his punishment. Domestic violence is wrong and there is no place for it in the world, but honestly the league needs to make one decision and have that be their final decision, instead of being so wishy-washy. They only changed their punishment because they knew that the public would criticize them for taking it easy on Ray Rice, since the fans didn’t yet see the whole scene.
This brings me to the second controversial decision, which involves Adrian Peterson. Reports say that a few months ago, Peterson punished his son by grabbing a tree branch and spanking his son repeatedly, which left bruises and injuries all over his 4-year old’s body. He has not denied these claims and in fact says that we was doing his job parenting. However, after seeing this child abuse, the league decided to suspend Peterson for one game against the Patriots.
What are the differences between domestic and child abuse? A little consistency would be nice in the NFL. So Ray Rice beats his wife, knocking her unconscious, and it was all publicly released on video. He is then banned from the league. But an NFL star beats up his child and is only suspended one game? Let’s not forget that that child suffered some brutal injuries and will have scars, physical and mental, to remember that day for the rest of his life. The reasoning of the league just doesn’t seem to make sense, especially that of Commissioner Roger Goodell. If he is going to give a punishment, he should stand by it. In addition to that, he should make reasonable punishments, ones that makes sense, and when another player makes a mistake, he should make another reasonable punishment regardless of the name on the player’s jersey. All in all, the league just needs to think before their decisions and make reasonable judgments on the situations at hand.