One More Chance

I am a pro football fan. I love the Dallas Cowboys in specific. My love of the Cowboys goes beyond their 1990’s success or their success as of late. It’s my favorite team and will be for life. Why am I writing about a football team that was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by a divisional rival in March? Because the Cowboys (and to a less successful degree, the Raiders) are the team of the second chance.

A few days ago, talk has surfaced that the Cowboys may acquire the talents of the currently suspended Titan’s cornerback, Adam “Pacman” Jones. Jones has been arrested six times for incidences all seeming to involve strip clubs. He has been suspended since April of 2007 for his many arrests. But that won’t scare away Jerry Jones. Jones signed Terrell Owens, a player characterized by his awful attitude and his past choices to throw team mates under the bus, calling Jeff Garcia gay and blaming Donovan McNabb for the Eagles failure to win the Super Bowl. Jones also hired the formerly suspended Tank Johnson who was suspended for being sentence to a s four month stint in jail for violating parole, which was cut to two months because of good behavior. Jones believes that his program and the player’s natural desire to compete will lead them from their off the field troubles.

The NFL holds player conduct (off and on) the field in almost the same value as athletic ability and game intelligence. Michael Vick is a testament to that. My real gripe with the NFL is that this standard doesn’t seem to apply to coaches. 12% of Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s salary ($500,000 of 4.2 million) was taken away for being caught video taping the Jets’ defensive signals. There have been many reports that this problem has been going on in the NFL for years and with the Patriots just as long. Then there’s Andy Reid. Last year, two of the Eagles coach’s sons were sent to prison, one for a pointing a gun in the face of another driver and the other for a heroine induced car accident that left one driver injured. The judge called the Reid household a “drug emporium.” Garret Reid told a probation officer that he liked being the rich kid that sold drugs to the poor. 89 pills were found in his jail cell. If I am understanding this correctly, a player is implicated in dog fighting and is jailed and indefinitely suspended from the NFL, but a coach allows his children to live in his house so recklessly that one puts a gun in a driver’s face and the other injures another person in a heroine induced car crash and states that he liked selling drugs (poison) to the poor (people) and said coach is made gets no conduct penalty.

I know the immediate reaction is to say that the bad acts were done by his kids and not him, but that is doesn’t fly when your kids are obviously doing drugs and storing weapons in your house. Moreover, when the league suspended Vick indefinitely, the only hard fact against Vick was that dog fighting occurred at a house that he owns but is not his actual residence. The facts about Vick’s involvement in the dog fighting were not known he was given his suspension. For all the NFL knew, he and Reid committed the same act; facilitating a crime. Do I expect him to turn his drug dealing children in to the DEA? Not at all, but I do expect the league to maintain the same zero tolerance policy for players and coaches. If Terrell Owens is fined $7,500 for using the football in an end zone celebration, shouldn’t there be something done to a coach whose house held what a judge called a drug emporium along with plenty of illegal guns? Call me crazy, but this smells a lot like a double standard.

As the leader of a team, I would expect coaches to be held to a hire level of accountability than players. They cannot talk character if they their character is questionable. The NFL conduct rules should extend to everyone that is grossly overpaid by the NFL, players and coaches. If they won’t changed to be more inclusive then do it like Jerry. Make your team out of second chance guys. If punishment is given out on the basis of employment status and not actual acts, then figure out a way to deal with character and a sign some “bad apples” to free agency and prepare for a run at the Lombardi Trophy.

Go Cowboys!