Slap on Vontaze Burfict's Wrist Just Another Symptom of NFL's Broken Priorities

You can't be around sports without hearing the word integrity. It's what players need to show. It's what coaches stand for. It's what league officials and executives must personally embody and professionally protect.

Without integrity, sports are meaningless.

My eight-year-old son has played hockey since he was four. At his age, the sport is competitive—uniforms are worn, games are played—but they're "officiated" by the coaches, or tween-age hockey players learning how to ref. They make sure everyone's safe, point when the puck crosses the goal line, and that's it. The kids and parents are the only ones keeping score.

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This summer, though, he played in a three-on-three tournament. For the first time in his hockey "career," there was an official score being kept, official results, a trophy at stake. In the middle of the first game, he intercepted a pass, turned to take it up the ice and got tripped by the flailing stick of one of his opponents.

My reaction was immediate, instant, primal: That's not fair.

If fouls aren't called, or aren't called consistently, the whole contest falls apart. The score is meaningless, the results are a sham, and the trophy's a lie.

Fortunately for my son, the ref was keeping track. At the end of the game, the team who'd had more fouls committed against it than it committed got a penalty shot for each one over the balance. My son would go on to have the pleasure of burying his first real penalty shot, and sporting order would be restored.

Right now, the NFL isn't fair.

Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict has been fined $25,000, per ESPN.com, for visibly twisting the ankles of Carolina Panthers Cam Newton and Greg Olsen. On the surface, that stiff penalty makes perfect sense. Player safety is a hot-button issue and a top priority for the league. That's what the New Orleans Saints' "Bountygate" punishments were all about: Players purposefully injuring each other is a direct threat to the NFL's integrity. 

Had Burfict severely injured Newton or Olsen, it would have had a huge on-field impact for the NFC South-leading Panthers and dramatically tipped the balance of power in that division.

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Sure, fine. Then, consider that New Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham received a $30,000 fine for dunking a football over the goalpost in celebration. Graham called the punishment "steep," per ABC13, and he's not kidding.

Before we get too incensed about him getting fined more for celebrating a touchdown than Burfict did for repeatedly trying to injure opponents, though, we should keep in mind Graham bent a goalpost last season, delaying a game in the process.

Giving the NFL a pass for that one doesn't wipe its slate clean of black marks. It also fined Colin Kaepernick $11,025 for using a racial slur on the field—but when it found there was no evidence he did so, per Fox Sports, the league cut the fine in half.

''It should've all been gone,'' Kaepernick said. ''If you're going to say I used a racial slur and come back and say I didn't say it, then I don't know what I'm being fined for.''

Of course, there's been the usual assortment of ridiculous uniform fines: $15,000 to Chicago Bears receiver Brandon Marshall for wearing green cleats, $10,000 to Kaepernick for wearing the wrong brand of headphones, etc.

Go back to Bountygate, though, and we remember New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton had to spend a year coaching Pop Warner because he hired a guy who allegedly helped coordinate a bounty program that may or may not have existed and may or may not have inspired some players to try to injure other players.

Meanwhile, Burfict actually tried to injure other players, and he skated with a fine that doesn't even equal one $43,750 game check, per Spotrac.com—let alone put a dent in the $3.8 million roster bonus he earned this year.

Wildly fluctuating fines for misconduct are just one reflection of a systemic problem. It's been the same story with out-of-whack Personal Conduct Policy suspensions levied by commissioner Roger Goodell and the draconian substance abuse policy that's still being revised.

The impossible-to-predict on-field officiating of pass interference, holding and illegal contact are another facet of the same problem—as is the unfortunate fact that nobody knows what a catch is anymore.

When the rules aren't clear and the penalties aren't consistent, the integrity of the game is in question. When that happens, what's the point of watching?

Goodell and the NFL have repeatedly stated their priorities: player safety, competitive equality and the integrity of the game. Yet their actions repeatedly underscore their real priorities: brand identity, television revenue and sponsor return on investment. Eventually, we will lose faith and interest in the on-field product if the league fails to protect it. 

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

Newton said he wasn't disappointed by Burfict's light punishment. 

"The league is the one that handles punishment," he said, "and they decide the course of action and we all go about our day. I've moved on from it and it's not something I continue to think about." Olsen agreed.

"We let the chips fall where they may," he said, "and people who are much higher up the ladder than me make the decisions."

You and I might be incensed, but it shouldn't surprise us that Newton and Olsen quietly deferred to league authority.

After all, they don't want to get fined.