by Poacher
http://www.castefootball.us
With the start of the NFL season less than two months away, one of the league’s most publicized players is feeling the heat. Michael Vick, the starting quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, was recently indicted on charges of having violated federal laws prohibiting dogfighting. The details of the indictment are so grisly that even the miscreant mollycoddling “mainstream media” was forced to turn one of its yellow eyes on the event.
And save an even more embarrassing incident (which is entirely possible), this story is sure to dominate the headlines and radio call-in shows for weeks and maybe even months to come as it rightly should. Unfortunately for the NFL and its fans, St. Michael’s callous disregard for man’s best friend is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to the troublesome behavior of many players in the National Football League. Number 7 may be the one on the news today but he is only one face among many of what has become a growing embarrassment for the league — namely, increasing incidents of criminal (pathological?) behavior among its employees.
Since January 1, 2007 thirty-eight different NFL players have been arrested, indicted or cited by law enforcement authorities at local, state and federal levels. Offenses include disorderly conduct (Cedric Griffin), dogfighting (Michael Vick), felony coercion (Adam Jones), and hitting a pregnant woman in the face (Lionel Gates). Indeed the league now offers its paying customers a veritable constellation of assorted derelicts, hustlers and outright criminals to cheer for. Forget the nappy hair, what about the ankle bracelets!Of course the sports media is loathe to admit anything you’ve just read, but this ugly reality exists and persists without their permission. And they certainly will not point out the most revealing fact of all, that of the 38 players only three are white. Thus we come to the core of the problem. The euphemisms are trotted out: “the culture of violence” and the NFL’s “image problem,” etc, etc…. The media will contort themselves like Chinese acrobats to avoid mentioning the obvious: that the NFL has a race problem.
You know the stats. Blacks make up about 13 percent of America’s population and comprise 69 percent of NFL players and, their incessant whining about discrimination notwithstanding, 21 percent of its head coaches. The average black twelfth grader reads on the same level as the average white eighth grader and the average white on the street is fifty-five times more likely to be attacked by a black than vice-versa. The numbers go on and on. The NFL continues to draw the majority of its players from the most violent and feckless segment of our nation’s population. All with the blessing of our ever watchful national media whose refusal to put stories of black pathology in context has equated to an implied carte blanche for reprehensible behavior and is no less to blame for the sorry state of affairs than the criminals themselves.
But confronted with these observations the NFL and its corporate media toadies will respond by cynically pointing to the filled stadiums and high television ratings. “We’re just giving the fans what they want,” they say. In the minds of the media elite, and sadly in the minds of many fans, football and sports in general are little more than entertainment. I doubt Mike Utley feels the same way but I digress. The point is that blithely calling it “entertainment” does not absolve the league from its responsibility to put a respectable product on the field.
Michael Vick may indeed be found guilty of the crime he has been charged with and subsequently drummed out of the NFL. It would be a good start and may actually serve to send a message to current and aspiring NFL players. But it will not be enough. As the paying customers of the NFL, we have the power of the purse and we should use that power to demand that the league which runs the game we love stop forcing us to enter some strange and insulting quasi-Faustian bargain every Sunday by offering us the dregs of the country to cheer for. There are better men out there than these. A league stocked with the likes of Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, Mike Furrey, Mike Hass and Brian Leonard would be infinitely more palatable than what we have now. Let us resolve to make this a reality.