Has the NFL Become the New Thug League?

Ben Roethlisberger has confirmed what the National Football League and mainstream America does not want to come to grips with.

That pro football league has fondled, shot, gambled, and dime-bagged its way to the undisputed title of Thug League champion that was once held by the National Basketball Association.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should be ecstatic that his league has accomplished this feat without much fanfare. There were no talk show radio hosts imploring Sheriff Goodell suspend habeas corpus for athletes who run afoul of the law.

Few sports writers or television analysts have demanded the 32 respective franchise owners use an iron fist when their highly paid star employees are repeatedly charged with drunken driving, drug possession, illegal gun possession and other sinister activities that besmirch the coveted shield Goodell and his henchmen desperately seek protection for. 

Why such apathy for the off the field mischief of Pro Bowlers and Super Bowl winning quarterbacks you might wonder? Well, it is hard to criticize a product you are in bed with. The NFL is the money maker for networks and struggling newspapers alike. You never want to mess with anything that could jeopardize the influx of cash.

Maybe it is time for the league to invest in NFL brand condoms or contraceptives just in case a player gets the urge to board a plane with a handgun, or for an owner who decides it is a good idea to flip fans the bird inside a sold out stadium. 

The NFL does stress the importance of players adhering to the somewhat strict  personal conduct policy. However, many players—some who have even been repeaters—treat it as voluntary work.  

Which brings me back to the NBA. The organization that has been unfairly branded the Original Gangsters.

A league in which there was a perception that the masses were becoming offended by brash, outspoken arrogant athletes who embraced bling-bling and the hip-hop culture.  It was said the average fan no longer could relate to the modern professional basketball player due to the cornrows and tattoos.

Following several publicized incidents involving drugs, guns and few on court altercations, David Stern implemented a dress code, told the players to wear sports coats on the bench and started the NBA Cares campaign in order to cure  what was believed to be  a image problem.

We turned off our televisions and refrained from attending contests in protest of Allen Iverson, Steven Jackson, Latrell Sprewell and Kobe Bryant after their unfortunate brushes with the law and NBA head coaches. We demonized Ron Artest for igniting an ugly player/fan scuffle at the Palace of Auburn Hills during a Pacers-Pistons game a few years ago.

By no means do I condone the actions of those men, but where is the same treatment for the NFL? Why have we not gotten on our high horses and collectively  said enough is enough? Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting the league can do no wrong. When it engaged itself in a months-long saga with cable providers that prevented football hungry fans from watching Thursday night games, we brushed it off.

When preseason prices mimicked regular season game prices, we brushed it off. When Goodell mandated teams fill their stadiums on Sundays or else risk not getting the local television feed, we didn’t feel too violated.

And now that Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl champion has been twice accused of forcing himself on young women, we continue to look the other way. Sure, many are outraged and even disappointed in the Steelers quarterback for barhopping and sexing it up with a college co-ed in small-town Georgia. Several are calling for the former Miami Ohio signal caller to be suspended.

But rest assured millions will be tuned into the NFL Draft and the made-for-TV primetime unveiling of the regular season schedule.  

It does not matter if Mike Vick gets thrown in jail for dog fighting, Rae Carruth conspires to commit the murder, Matt Jones line dances with cocaine, or Chris Henry (God rest his soul) inadvertently kills himself by jumping off the back of his fiancé’s pickup truck following a domestic dispute, we still embrace the NFL. 

Just in 2010 alone 20 NFL players have been arrested for a crime. Nonetheless Super Bowl XLIV was the most watched program in television history. Imagine the reaction by the press if those cases involved the likes of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Derrick Rose, or Carmelo Anthony. There would be serious cries for a congressional investigation.

But it is the basketball players who we need evidence of reformation. It is the basketball players who we want to be unselfish. It is the basketball players who we yearn to stay in college two, three or four years instead of entering the NBA Draft. 

It seems to me that troublemakers and lapses of immaturity are commonplace for those who stay four years at institutions of higher learning before strapping on shoulder pads and helmets while banking millions in guaranteed dollars in the NFL.

How can anyone relate to that?