Is one of your favourite players—okay, fantasy players—embroiled in off-field controversy? Did your favourite team draft or sign someone with—gasp!—character concerns? How will your precious children learn and grow in a world in which some of the 1,700 men who make a living playing professional football are less than model citizens? Are we to believe that the actions of a few men indicate that the standards of the National Football League have fallen to the level of a Toronto municipal election? Has it really come to that?
Thankfully, no. Or, at least, probably not. But we’re here to answer those questions and more in our offseason FAQ. Where no league action or facet of player character escapes scrutiny. Even the good ones!
Q: Why was the draft so late this year?
A: Honestly? Because the NFL knew you would whine about it and then shut up and watch in greater numbers than ever before. And you did. More people watched the draft on ESPN than watched both of the NBA playoff games that aired that night combined. And more people—in the US, at least—watched the draft on the NFL Network, than watched both NHL playoff games combined. So good job, angry football fans. Way to show the NFL who’s boss.
(Or, if you’re willing to take the NFL’s given reasons at face value—not always a great idea, as recent history has proven—the draft was pushed back because of a venue conflict.)
Q: How much goodwill did the Rams drafting of Michael Sam buy them?
A: From non-football fans and other people who could care less whether he profiles as a defensive end or a linebacker at the next level? An infinite amount. People who I know for a fact have never watched a football game with anything but tepid curiosity now have a reason to hope for the Rams to rule the NFC West.
Among football fans? It was a genuine, historic moment that we will all remember with fondness unless Sam’s reality show debuts and conflicts with an actual football game.
From the Xs and Os perspective of a football fanatic, even if you don’t care at all one way or the other about Michael Sam’s sexual orientation, you should still be rooting for him. If he’s given the chance to succeed and does, it’ll open the door for all sorts of other so-called “tweener” prospects—too small for the D-line, too slow for linebacker—to be used creatively on the field. And, much like the heartwarming acceptance of Sam as a person, anything that gets a more diverse collection of athletes into the game should be welcomed.
Q: Who won the draft?
A: Whichever team you cheer for. Definitely.
Perhaps the best take on post-draft analysis came from NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock who, as his colleagues began instantly assigning grades to teams during the final round of the weekend affair, could not contain his scorn…
Amen, Mike. If you want to know who lost the draft, well, it’s too early for that, too. But honestly—it was probably the Raiders and Jaguars. Just going out on a limb.
Q: Does the NFL have a discipline problem?
A: Do you mean the NFL doesn’t work out enough? Comes home after work and dives into a bag of chips on the couch? Never does its homework? There are players in the NFL with discipline problems. Several, in fact. Greg Hardy, Ray Rice and Josh Gordon are the most notable among them—assuming you equate domestic abuse charges and reported marijuana use as equally emblematic of trouble with self control or, as the NFL seems to, view pot smoking as deserving of the worse punishment of those two misdeeds. (If you do that, you’re not very wise.)
Regardless, the league itself is actually neither disciplined nor undisciplined—but the vast majority of its citizens are more disciplined than you. We have this conversation every offseason, but it’s worse now that smartphones and security cameras are everywhere so all the embarrassing, and in some cases disturbing, footage ends up online. Yes, some players in the NFL are meatheads who run afoul of the law. So are some regular dudes in your neighbourhood. So are some millionaires. So far this year, 17 of the approximately 1,700 NFL players who dress on a Sunday have been charged with criminal offences—about one percent—and one of the NFL’s 32 owners has been charged with a criminal offence—roughly 3.1 percent. There you have it, I guess. Who will combat the discipline problem amongst the NFL’s ownership?
Q: What’s the salary/achievement threshold for assuming a player’s release was due to an “off-field issue” and not simply “a football decision”? $3-million per year? More than one Pro Bowl appearance?
A: You’re talking about DeSean Jackson, aren’t you? Don’t lie. Lying is a character concern.
Here we go again.
It took all of 10 minutes after the announcement of Jackson’s release by the Philadelphia Eagles in March for the nastiest parts of football fandom, and football analysis, to bubble to the surface.
The Eagles had been trying to move the flashy wideout—who led the team with 82 catches, nine touchdowns and more than 1,300 yards last season—for the past few weeks, according to reports, but on Friday they decided to simply walk away from the three-time Pro Bowler. Most pointed to a NJ.com piece that said the team was concerned about his ties to gang members, but the Eagles made no mention of the reasons behind their decisions.
That didn’t stop the talking heads. It usually doesn’t.
“I think he’s a toxic commodity right now and I think they’ll be very few [teams] interested in him,” Ron Jaworski said on ESPN.
He wasn’t the only one leaping to whatever conclusion drew a few eyeballs.
We could include a few tweets from the uglier side of fandom, too, but most of them aren’t appropriate for this website.
It’s disappointing. Not that the Eagles would release Jackson, whom they’d been trying to trade, but that one report citing unproven ties to gang members would instantly be taken as something approaching an explanation for the roster move. Those ties, by the way, were vigorously denied by Jackson in a statement released shortly afterwards.
“I am not and never have been part of any gang. I am not a gang member,” the statement read.
In reality, the Eagles couldn’t find a trade partner for Jackson’s salary, his role began to diminish as soon as Nick Foles took over for Michael Vick, the team was already bringing back Jeremy Maclin and Jackson and Chip Kelly supposedly had their differences last season. Any of those would seem a better reason than whispers of gang ties, especially for a franchise that has employed convicted criminals.