Equality and the NFL

The notion of equality stretches across many parts of our society.  People are fighting all over the country for quality education, acceptance, and to stand up to bullying.  In the non-professional athletic portion of society we are taught to embrace these qualities.  There can be consequences if we try to bully or discriminate against someone else.   However, it seems that these qualities do not carry over into the world of the NFL.  There have been three recent events concerning the NFL that have shown how the league’s, and those that cover it, culture runs counter to the rest of society.  Let’s take a look at them:

Richard Sherman’s Exuberant Post Game Interview

We all know what happened after Sherman’s game saving play in the NFC Championship game.  Erin Andrews had to interview him moments after and he was so pumped on adrenaline that he gave one of the most talked about interviews in American sports history.  Many NFL analysts and news personalities re-acted to this by calling Sherman a thug.  They hated how brash he was even though many of them complain how boring post-game interviews are.  They called him uneducated – despite having a GPA over 4 in high school and a Stanford education – because he’s from Compton.  These same people who salivate over the brutality that is professional football were somehow offended when a player showed raw, extremely raw, emotions very shortly after making the play that sent him team to the Super Bowl.

Michael Sam Announces He’s Gay

Sam, the reigning SEC defensive player of the year, announced that he is gay shortly after the NFL season ended.  As of right now, before the pre-draft process begins, he is considered to be a 3^rd round pick.  He played defensive end in college but many scouts consider him to be a candidate to switch to outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme.  Everyone praised his decision to come out and called it a defining moment to equal opportunity in the NFL.  Despite hearing all of the right talk there are reports coming out that not everyone is comfortable with an openly gay player in the NFL.  Like in other parts of society, it is not surprising to hear that there are some players are not comfortable with this, but it is more than a little surprising to hear that there are NFL general managers and even some team executives who feel the same way.  It is quite possible that Sam will slip in the draft because some team leaders cannot get passed their own homophobia instead of focusing on how Sam the football player can help their team.

The Miami Dolphin’s Situation

It is unfair to call this the Incognito/Martin scandal as the recent Well’s report has implicated many more parties in this situation.  This whole ordeal has shown us greater insight into NFL locker rooms than any Hard Knock’s episode.  The Well’s report has faulted Incognito, two other linemen, and the offensive line coach in the harassment and bullying of Martin and another player.  This report also cleared head coach Joe Philbin and the Dolphin’s front office of having any knowledge of this situation.  If this is true then the Dolphin’s have a lot more problems than any one realizes.  If it’s not true, than the Dolphin’s leadership is guilty of allowing, perhaps even encouraging, this problem to grow to the point where one player, one man, felt it necessary to walk away.  Many players were quick to call Martin weak for abandoning his teammates, but imagine if more of us had the courage to walk away from an unhealthy situation.

While these three situations are only a sliver of the NFL world they still show a side of the NFL that we would not tolerate in any other forum.  We watch NFL games for entertainment but we do not have to stomach players, or anyone else involved in the game, devalue the game through bigotry.  Some will point out that the culture of the NFL is just different from the rest of the society but that’s no excuse to lessen the value of education, not support players from all walks of live, and to support those who need to make themselves feel better by making others feel worse.  As fans we pour our time, money, and hearts into our favorite franchises.  Maybe it’s time we let them know that we will not tolerate these kinds of behaviors if they want our continued support.