Recently there has been some talk on the part of the Green Bay Packers about preempting the possible suspension of a running back, Josh Jacobs, for domestic violence charges that are pending against him. I know very little about the actual charges against him other than the fact that they exist. Based on what I feel about professional athletes, especially, NFL athletes, I kind of presume that the charges are very real and that Jacobs is likely guilty. However, I have a sort of opinion about separating the legal side of things from sports in that I don't believe it is the NFL's job to do anything about this.
This is a controversial topic for many people and obviously there are certain lines that need to be drawn and how someone guilty of shoplifting is certainly a different can of worms than someone that is guilty of beating up their girlfriend or wife. The question remains though, is the NFL, or any league in any sport for that matter, in a position where they need to take action against the player in order to maintain some sort of judicious order?
This might not be a popular viewpoint to have, but I personally believe that the sports organization doesn't really have an obligation to step in with these sorts of things and that especially in a situation where the charges are still pending, a player shouldn't face any sort of backlash stemming from something that has very little to do with the sport that they happen to play.
I realize this will upset some people here but the reason why I think this is because this could be used by opposing teams or even weaponized by various teams. I suppose that sounds kind of far-fetched but what can I say? I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist.
Perhaps one of the most famous situations of a person getting the entire book thrown at them for something they did off the court or field is the case of Michael Vick, who was charged with animal cruelty charges for running a dog-fighting operation on his property. An extremely cruel and horrible thing to engage in.
It was estimated that Vick ended up losing over $130 million from these charges and was basically blacklisted afterwards but later on he managed to scrape back about $100 million of that when the Eagles decided to sign him anyway. He was not very popular and didn't make as much of an impact as they likely had hoped, but the question remains, did the NFL have a moral obligation to lock him out, so to speak?
I don't believe so. I feel as though he is an absolute scumbag for what he did, but at the end of the day his horrible actions that took place in his private life didn't really have anything to do with football other than the sport providing him with the money in the first place, and perhaps a boatload of arrogance to make him believe that this is something he could get away with.
Let's leave that alone for now but in the end I am of the opinion of F**K Michael Vick and the Eagles for signing him after the fact, but still, I think it can and should be allowed.
Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens was charged with a double-homicide and it is largely believed that he was in fact guilty although the charges were dropped in a plea deal that resulted in him pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. This is a sort of "OJ Case" though in that almost everyone believes that he is guilty and only got off because of his fame and because he is largely considered to be one of the best linebackers of all time.
I don't remember if the NFL stepped in to suspend or fire him but I do know that he ended up keeping his job.
I am unaware of any legal obligation on the part of any sport league to fire players convicted of crimes and for the most part any suspensions or firings are mostly public relations situations rather than any sort of hiring or employment regulations that they are obligated to adhere to.
While I realize that a lot of people are going to get kind of worked up about me saying that I don't think that people should be fired for this sort of thing and let the legal system do its job, that is the way that I feel.
I'm not even a particularly big fan of Green Bay either, so we can't claim bias here. As far as the rules of NFL are concerned, a conviction, even of felonies, protects teams by allowing them to terminate contracts in this situation, but nobody is legally or contractually obligated to terminate any employment. Is this the right thing to do?
I'm interested in hearing what you think about this?
