Good on ya, Goodell
I meant to post about this last night but forgot, and then, while reading the Freakonomics Blog, I found that they'd done my job for me:
The National Football League’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, has just made it a lot more expensive to be a thug. Goodell suspended the Titans’ Pacman Jones without pay for the upcoming season (a loss of $1.29 million in base salary) and the Bengals’ Chris Henry for the first half of the season (surrendering as much as $230,000 in base pay). Jones has been arrested five times since he was drafted two years ago; Henry was arrested four times between Dec. 2005 and June 2006.
Although the N.F.L. is not the only sports league that intensely counsels its incoming players about staying out of trouble, it does seem to be the only one willing to discipline its hardcore troublemakers.
These suspensions are far more damaging to the players than to their teams, who are free to replace the players and don’t have to pay their salaries (and, as a bonus, get rid of a huge distraction). This is the sort of thing that makes some people argue that Gene Upshaw, the head of the players’ union, plays too easily into the league’s hands. (I would argue that this is also the sort of thing that makes the N.F.L. so attractive to sponsors and fans.)
Hear hear. From everything I can tell, Pacman Jones has absolutely no clue WHY what he's done is wrong, and it will take hitting in the only place that apparently counts (his wallet) to make that clear. And of course, the only reason I'm upset about Chris Henry being suspended is that it's turned into a running joke about how often he gets arrested. It should also reduce the thuggery that is all too prevalent in sports these days - not as much in baseball, where ironically rules like this could NEVER be instituted as players pretty much have the run of the show there.
In basketball, however, it would be nice to see this extended. On the radio last night, I heard a story - perhaps an incorrect one - that someone in Carmelo Anthony's posse pushed around a kid who wanted Melo's autograph. Melo shrugged it off, saying all that mattered was that Denver won the game. That's the kind of attitude that no one benefits from.