Another thought, does anyone else feel like its a bit hypocritical of us to pile on to these guys for reasons that have nothing to do with what we glorify them for in the first place?
Not condoning any of their actions or the NFL's lack of action. Just food for thought. They are professional football players - we expect them to be good at football. They're not in the NFL for being stand up members of the community.
I'm not trying to take a stand one way or the other here, so please don't flame me too much. Just trying to make a bigger point about us enjoying and celebrating violence on the field.
Also I love football.
But they're also very public figures, and
more importantly role models for children of all ages. It comes with the territory of being on TV every week, having shoe deals, and being on cereal boxes. It's not like this is a surprise to players that part of being a star in the NFL also makes them a celebrity. We glorify them because they have achieved the pinnacle of success in their field, doing what most of us could never possibly do. They represent an idealistic dream of getting paid millions of dollars to "play a game" every week. They're much more than guys throwin' around the pigskin. It's on them to act how they want to act, but they don't get to hide behind the "I'm just a human" excuse. Yes, people make mistakes, but if NFL players didn't want to be under constant public scrutiny, they should've gone into a different career.
This is such a tired line. Every adult is a role model for children, whether they like it or not. There are tons of kids who couldn't care less about the NFL and couldn't name 5 players. WHO ARE THEIR ROLE MODELS? Every adult they observe on a daily basis.
WE are the ones who make a big deal of athletically gifted and well compensated 20 somethings and put them under public scrutiny. Yes, they have a great opportunity but that doesn't change the fact that they are 20 something year old humans who are going to do some dumb ish. Pretty much all of us do.
When they get caught doing negative stuff then they deal with the consequences like everybody else. But let's stop acting like it's the end of the world or like they are so different than the rest of us just so some of us can point fingers and feel better about ourselves.