Another month, another controversy facing the NFL regarding how it perceives and treats women and its female fanbase. The league is no stranger to handling misconduct by players, coaches, and owners with a double standard to women. Let’s look at a few "highlights" from recent history to help understand the problem.
The Double Standards of the Shield
The controversy involving New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and prominent NFL insider Dianna Russini illustrates the one-sidedness of sports culture. While it was an issue of non-football activities, the professional fallout was lopsided. Russini resigned from her employer, The Athletic, amid internal investigations. Meanwhile, Vrabel gave a brief press conference, stepped away for a quick moment of counseling, and moved right back to coaching. Why does Russini face all of the backlash from an affair they both were involved in? While the NFL has no official stance on the issue, it does point to a larger issue of fairness regarding how women’s behavior is viewed compared to men’s behavior in the sports ecosystem.
This lack of accountability by the Patriots isn't surprising given that Patriots owner Robert Kraft was busted in a Florida massage parlor sting in 2019. He had all charges against him dropped, oh, to have those kinds of attorneys on retainer. The NFL chose not to pursue any disciplinary action against him, despite his actions clearly violating the Personal Conduct Policy. Meanwhile, as the Washington Post reported: "The immigrant women, some of whom worked and lived inside the spa under grueling conditions, became the only individuals publicly convicted and financially penalized in the entire high-profile scandal." Maybe Bob should have let them use his attorneys?
Deshaun Watson was given an 11-game suspension by the NFL following civil lawsuits filed by 24 women alleging varying degrees of sexual assault and predatory behavior. While his discipline was being processed, the NFL allowed the Cleveland Browns to trade for him and sign him to the largest fully guaranteed contract in NFL history. And the league allowed the Browns to structure the contract so that Watson lost less than $1 million of his $230 million contract during his suspension. His financial penalty was less than 0.5% of the entire contact amount which isn’t even a slap on the wrist, while his victims faced intense online harassment. Former New York Giants kicker Josh Brown was initially suspended for just one game after being investigated by the King County Sheriff's Office for domestic violence. Investigators uncovered a personal journal where Brown explicitly admitted to physically and emotionally abusing his wife. The NFL defended its leniency by stating that because the witness (his abused wife) refused to cooperate with their investigators, a one-game suspension was all they could hand out. Meanwhile, during that exact same era, the NFL spent millions of dollars, yes millions of dollars and fought a massive multi-year legal battle to suspend Tom Brady for four games over allegedly deflating footballs. Why? Because the integrity of the game was at stake.
Protecting the Shield
I could fill a book with other examples of the double standards the NFL extends to its wealthy owners, high-paid players, and coaches, or to protect its lucrative broadcasting rights and sponsorship deals. But at this point, we all get the idea. The most important thing for the NFL is to Protect the Shield and keep the mantra "This too shall pass" on their lips. Which according to past precedence has worked.
Every time a crisis hits, the league drops the same generic press conference script: "We are working with local law enforcement, the person(s) involved, and we are doing our own internal investigation into the matter, we are still collecting all of the facts, we’ll provide our findings at a later time." The corporate media, ESPN, Fox Sports, etc. Just regurgitate these nothing burgers. The exact same lip service is now playing out in the case of San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York. Here we have an ultra-wealthy individual who traveled into a working-class community, with the desire to secure sexual favors for cash. And seriously, Jed, you’re a billionaire, why are you trolling a mobile home park in Ohio to spend $140?
Thankfully, it was a police sting, and York did not successfully exploit a vulnerable woman. He was charged, pleaded no contest to amended misdemeanor charges, and technically received a two-day jail sentence with credit for one day served. Act II of the play will be the dog-and-pony show of an official NFL investigation. I’m sure his PR team is already working overtime to bend the narrative and find him a cushy news outlet to do an exclusive interview with. I can’t wait to see the inevitable statements about how "in a weak moment he made a bad choice," that "this isn't who he truly is," and how "thanks to the grace and support of his loved ones, (maybe a shout to Jesus?) he is moving past this deeply personal matter and will not speak on it publicly again and hopes people can respect his privacy.”
The Bottom Line
This double standard speaks to a much larger societal issue regarding the wealth gap and institutional immunity for the ultra-rich. That’s for another article or maybe another site PoliticalXone, SocietyXone? Moving on.
The NFL wants us to believe that they care about their female fans. They want women to be on the outside looking in, a core part of football culture. They need moms to be okay with their sons risking their long term health for the longshot chance of being cut in training camp, basically destroying their bodies for the next generation of on-the-field products. But at the end of the day, they just want the spending power that women hold to be directed toward the NFL.
The NFL needs to wake up to the reality of the double standard it perpetuates towards women. Otherwise, the acronym NFL might as well stand for Neglecting Female Loyalty. The NFL needs to have an earnest conversation with itself and start living up to its own written rules. If they refuse to enforce their own Personal Conduct Policy against the men charged with assaulting women, sexually, physically, emotionally, it ceases to be a policy and becomes one more example of hypocrisy in America. And I think we the people have had enough of that.
Fans want sports to be held to a higher standard, because there are rules that teams and the game need to follow. We as fans know what they are, we follow them when they are changed (for better or worse), we know the players and teams know them. Following these rules allow for the spirit of a meritocratic outcome, which has been an idea America is founded on and forced down our throats our whole lives. When the NFL can’t live up to the standards it has created for fairness on and off the field, for the benefit of its own wellbeing and of that of both male and female fans, then what’s the point of having rules at all? People are aware of the unfairness of those who get to live above the law. Hopefully the NFL will wake up to this realization it’s not above its own rules before it’s too late.
