Role Models: The 21st Century NFL Athlete

When you were younger, did you ever get into a fight with your friend about who the better athlete was? In high school, when you joined your first fantasy football team, did you ever questions a players character before you drafted him? 

Has your child ever said, "When I grow up I want to be like Marshawn Lynch?"  How about Pacman Jones?

It isn't hard with as much media that is out there to notice all of the foul things that occur in the NFL.  Actually, it seems all major professional athletes are doing something to jeopardize the integrity of the sport they play, or themselves. 

Marshawn Lynch is going to be the topic of this particular opinion, but he isn't the only player to blame in the NFL for what is going on. In fact, it may not be a players fault at all that the faith people have in professional athletes characters is falling faster than our stock market.

In case you are unaware of the current situation, let me give you a quick update.  Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor gun charge and was sentenced to community service and probation. Eighty hours, in Oakland. 

You may remember Lynch from last year when he plead guilty to a traffic-violation which consequently involved him in the bar district in downtown Buffalo and striking a women who later would require medical care. That medical care was seven stitches to the thigh. 

This most recent guilty plea comes from a February 11, arrest when officers were suspicious of a parked car without licence plates. Upon further investigation, and at the request of searching the vehicle, officers found a semi-automatic 9mm handgun, and oh yeah, four joints (that's a marijuana cigarette). 

There were no drug charges filed, and two other misdemeanor gun charges were dismissed.

This guy is 22 years old and he has managed to get his licenced taken away, 3 years of probation, and 80 hours of community service, and has yet to be suspended by the NFL for violating personal conduct policies. 

I am wondering is a drug test being administered as we speak? Has one been taken, because I am no Columbo here, but I have to imagine in the cops find you in a car with another guy, with four joints, and it smells like marijuana in there, chances are you probably started out with five, maybe six. 

I have had it with the NFL commissioners office, and more importantly the blinded law system that allows a young man like this to screw up. Give a public apology which most of us feel is as real as an Oscar award speech.

He gets to say I am sorry and I want to become a better citizen, but smoking pot and carrying around handguns is just too much fun!  Play in the NFL, make millions, and with any luck by this time next offseason we will have probably seen the third mistake. 

The people who are there to enforce the rules are allowing them to be broken.  Goddell was suppose to be cracking down, but I still see it. 

The justice system slaps a player on the wrist in hopes of them really screwing up, at which case it becomes election year material and new political weight to get yourself that new job. 

The coaches are relieved that the player isn't suspended but they are not concerned that the player almost killed someone, or could have killed someone. 

The NFLPA doesn't want the people to know truly, everyday players use performance enhancing drugs, do illegal drugs, perform acts of violence or law breaking that needs to be swept under the rug, because as long as they are out there playing, that is all that really matters. 

Role Models...I really hope I am my child's role model when they start to learn about them. Because really, if they ever say it was an NFL athlete that spends more time in the headlines than on the sidelines, I might have to give up watching football.

I really don't want to have to do that.