Don't forget, like it or not, NFL players are in the public spotlight & are role models for lots of kids.
"Think of the children?" We're talking about a sport where we applaud players absolutely smashing and demolishing each other. He's an idiot for spitting on another player. It means he lost control. Same with Sean Taylor. But it's not the big deal people are making it out to be. Intentionally injuring someone is a big deal.
TO is an idiot for
many reasons. This is just another ordeal in a long line of stupidity that shadows TO wherever he goes. And, as a Cowboy fan, having never supported the move to bring him to Dallas in the first place, I hope he gets his just due. Problem is, for whatever motives people have, there are plenty of TO supporters out there who find nothing wrong in his pattern of behavior, which is an interesting reflection on them more than anything.
You would probably consider me a T.O. "supporter," but I don't think that's accurate. I think a lot of people "support" T.O. because of how the media overreacts to every little thing he does. I think he is unfairly bashed for some of the stuff. I'm not excusing his spitting in Hall's face or saying he shouldn't be bashed for it. He should. It was terrible.I'm just saying that he has been villified by the media for a lot of other things that he shouldn't have because going that route is an easy and lazy way to attract viewers. The hype that the media tries to sell - either negative or positive - is much more disturbing to me than anything T.O. has ever done. It seems every week we are subjected to so and so is the greatest ever or the worst of all time. There's no middle of the road. It's all hype and controversy and drama - whether any exists or not. T.O. is a big part of that.
I think you could pick apart individual instances (falling asleep, arguing with a coach, etc.) and accurately say that each little thing wouldn't get magnified if it were someone else. I agree with that.What you miss, though, is the gestalt--the big picture. I think this is the reason why the media and fans are fascinated with TO. It's because he has this long line of being a stupid punk, and you'd think any normal person would "get it" one day and try to change his behavior and stop being that stupid punk.
But, with TO, he is so totally incapable of being out of the spotlight...he is incapable of being a good teammate...he is so consistently doing idiotic things that undermine the teams he plays for, he's become a tragic figure in professional sports. There really isn't one redeeming quality he possesses, and he finds a way every week to be the biggest ####### on the block.
So, when he spits on another player, it gets magnified more than, say, the Pittman incident, because there's a history and backdrop to the guy where behavior like this snowballs.
The analogy here is an employee who, just as an example, yells at his boss or screws up on the month-end accounting in some egregious way. Taken on its own, he'll likely get a reprimand, and that would be it. That's if he's got no history. But, if this employee is chronically doing things that undermine the company, the reaction to him yelling at the boss or screwing up the report is going to be an "over-reaction," by comparison--he's eventually going to get fired. It's this pattern of behavior that TO brings to the table that's so unnerving. TO gets this type of reaction because he's ALWAYS being a stupid ingrate, and each successive action is amplified on top of the previous dumb-### thing he did the week before it.