Keidel: In Josh Brown Case, NFL And Giants Show A Disregard For Women
By Jason Keidel
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In the Captain Obvious moment of the season, the New York Football Giants cut kicker Josh Brown on Tuesday.
On Aug. 24, when news first broke on Brown -- or at least the "penalty" he was given -- I said the Giants and the NFL were entirely tone deaf.
The league has no problem banishing true criminals like Martavis Bryant, Josh Gordon, Ricky Williams and a host of miscreants for smoking weed. Send them away for a year -- to jail, rehab, Dr. Drew, anywhere but near our children.
But physically abuse your wife? Hey, we understand, brother. You get one game for that. As long as you admit you weren't nice and are truly sorry.
Yes, I was called all manner of moron, and a surprising gaggle of pundits were backing Brown, a habitual wife abuser. Even worse, the Giants were behind Brown, with a nauseating sense of sympathy. He knows he messed up, you see.
Imagine the indignity felt by female fans of pro football. What exactly does this tell them? We'll take your money. We appreciate the ratings. But if a woman gets slapped, popped or choked in the process, well, boys will be boys.
Juliet Macur wrote a scathing yet sublime piece in The New York Times on Saturday. Frankly, she's ticked off. And who can blame her? Women have to feel marginalized, trivialized and, yes, monetized.
She pointed out that TV ratings are down 11 percent. While the NFL and its minions would love to blame Donald Trump and/or Hillary Clinton for fewer faces on Sunday, it's likely a cocktail of bad commerce.
Kaepernick? Maybe. A little. But that story has blown off the shores of the Presidio, past Alcatraz and into the Pacific. And was anyone really tuning out the Dolphins or Giants or protesting the Patriots because of something that happened 3,000 miles westward?
Poor play? Maybe. A little. There have been some eyesores on Sundays. The Eagles-Vikings game was an insult to the forward pass, with five turnovers before your popcorn left the microwave. As was the marquee matchup Sunday night, the league's stand-alone, nationwide showdown between the Cardinals and Seahawks, which ended in a 6-6 tie, the first tie sans a touchdown since 1972.
Public regard for women? Maybe. A lot. The aggregate actions over the last few years are more than a gaffe, omission or error. This is a grotesque disregard for women around the world.
But, hey, make the players wear pink socks on Sunday -- but only in October -- and that clearly trumps a few domestic batteries.
A one-game suspension was the best the NFL could do, after a 10-month investigation? The league's and the Giants' journey into the Brown case was far less "Columbo" and far more "Bad Lieutenant."
According to the Times, the sheriff in charge of Brown's case, John Urquhart, was unmoved by the NFL's efforts to unearth Brown's misdeeds.
"Urquhart told KIRO, a Seattle radio station that the NFL never officially asked for documents," Macur wrote. "He said that two people he considered random -- but who he subsequently learned worked at the league -- had made document requests, which were denied. But had Urquhart known it was the NFL asking, things would have turned out differently."
And, as Macur pointed out, the Giants knew more than enough about Brown -- before they re-signed him in April. Team president and co-owner John Mara told WFAN as much last week, that Brown admitted he'd abused his wife. Mara just didn't know the extent.
Which leads to Macur's point and the source of women's mounting frustration and anger: "So Mara decided it was OK for a player to abuse his wife just a little bit?"
Indeed. What is enough? Ray Rice knocking out his wife on video didn't scare the NFL straight. Next we have a wife asserting that her husband had abused her on at least 20 prior occasions. The NFL didn't pause, blink or arch an eyebrow.
The NFL has this six-game template for domestic violence, yet never enforces it. Why give Brown one game to begin with? Why not go wild on the other end? Give him 10 games and let the courts work it out.
Do you think the world will shriek in horror at the idea of an abuser getting the business end of the legal and vocational stick? Would it not be better for someone getting two games above the average? Other than his legal team, who would possibly defend Brown had he gotten eight games instead of one?
This is not a mistake by the NFL. It's a pathology, a serial sense of apathy when it comes to violence -- by their own employees -- against women.
Since the sport rakes in about $12 billion annually, it's hard to cry ignorance. This is not incompetence. This is indifference.
The Times piece ends with a final stroke of PR blindness from the NFL. Melissa Mark-Viverito, speaker of the New York City Council, recently hatched a public service campaign, #NotAFan, fighting the plague of domestic violence.
Nearly every local sports franchise joined the speaker in this noble cause. Except the New York Jets. And the New York Football Giants.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
