ACCOUNTABILITY COMING FOR TEAMS WITH TURDS
Posted by Mike Florio on May 6, 2008, 2:47 p.m.

While banging out our item from earlier this afternoon regarding the next wave in the NFL’s effort to crack down on player misconduct (i.e., punishing the teams who harbor turds), we fired off an e-mail to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello inquiring as to whether any team has been penalized when one of its players has been arrested within the past year.

Aiello said that it hasn’t happened, but he also pointed out to us an April 29 story from Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News regarding the fact that teams have been told that they now face consequences in this regard.

For starters, the league will require teams to pay as a fine a portion of the salary that would have been paid to a player who otherwise is on suspension, and thus not getting paid.

“If you have an individual player that has discipline from the personal conduct policy, a portion of that salary is going to be withheld as a fine,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said, according to Gosselin. ”And that’s going to escalate.”

Goodell also said that he hasn’t ruled out “competitive consequences,” such as the forfeiture of draft picks.

Frankly, we think the only way to get the teams’ attention is to include draft picks in the discussion. It should be easy to put together a formula that allows for a bit of flexibility but that will prevent cries of bias or prejudice for or against any specific team(s).

The formula also needs to take into account whether the team knew or should have known that the player has had any convictions or guilty pleas before signing or drafting him. If the team knew or should have known that the player was a potential problem, then the penalty should be more significant.

We also think that incentives should be made available to teams who don’t experience problems with player conduct. Supplemental draft picks would be a possibility. Another approach would be to give teams who have emerged from the prior league year with no incidents priority placement in one of the middle rounds of the draft, such as round four or five.

Dumb Idea. I don't care who the player is, you can't control his actions when he's off on his own.

You may as well make them live at the facilities in a dorm 24/7 with a house mother. And only coach supervised field trips..

I think the idea is to make teams think twice before they allow certain players on their club. If he's a bad seed and you think you can handle him, then great. If he's a bad seed and you think you can handle him but don't, your loss.

The NFL is desperately trying to clean up their image. If it feels that extreme measures are needed in order to achieve their goal, then so be it.

Chris Henry comes to mind over and over. He's a bad seed, very bad. He's been in trouble over and over. You know what you're getting.

At the same time this relieves Goodell of some of the stress that's on him as the disciplinarian. It's an interesting idea to say the least. He probably feels he's doing his part with suspensions, etc. He may feel it's time for the teams to start giving him some help.

I'm not totally against it.

Fuck him. He wanted the job, and he so badly wanted to be sheriff. Let him.

And he's being just that.

Still a dumbass idea. That's like some guy who works for me, goes out on his own time, in his own car and gets picked up for dui and I gotta pay a fine and maybe do jail time because he worked for me.

Screw that.

Of course we don't know the exact details and I understand what you're saying. I don't necessarily disagree with you.

The NFL is more than just a locally owned business. What would the NFL be without commercials? What if Nike and Budweiser decided that the NFL's image is not something they want to be a part of? Goodell wouldn't be happy with that. Think of Nike during the Vick investigation. They came out and said they would wait for the legal system to run its course before making a decision on Vick. 2 days later Nike suspended the sale of Vick's shoes (before the legal system did it's thing). Nike started feeling the heat from those that are customers. They didn't want their name associated with Vick any longer.

If the NFL doesn't clean up it's act they may start losing sponsors. I used Chris Henry as an example earlier. You know what you're getting with this guy. If you (as a team owner or GM) want to gamble and sign this guy to a contract, then you will be held accountable the next time he gets in trouble.

If something come up out of the blue, like the Boley situation, then I agree with you 100% that the team shouldn't be penalized. I don't think and certainly hope that's not what this article is saying. No one could have seen that coming. It was an isolated incident. I'm not trying to get this to turn into a Vick discussion but Vick on the other hand was fighting dogs for at least 7 years. Someone in the Falcons organization either knew or should have known something of this magnitude was going on. In that case I think the team SHOULD be held somewhat accountable.

It looks like Goodell is headed in this direction. (Holding team's somewhat accountable for a players conduct.) Teams aren't gonna have a choice but to pay closer attention to who they give a contract to.

Gotta be some middle ground. Maybe a 3 strikes thing, or something. If a kid was totally clean in college, but then got drafted high, came into all this $, and then F's up, it doesn't totally surprise me. It took me a long time to grow up. I don't think we should put unreasonable expectations on these guys when they're just coming in. Chris Henry is one thing. Boley is another. Each individual is different, and yes maybe there should be something a little stronger in place, but I tend to agree w/the Horse on this one. What you do in your own time shouldn't concern me until it starts affecting my business.

If a guy's got a history of lousy decisions or is clearly an idiot, the team will pay it's own price, a la the Michael Vick issue.

The idea of penalizing a team draft picks because the NFL wants to clean up its image is idiotic.

If they want to contorl their players, they should actually require a college degree, some kind of citizenship factor, or put it in the players' bloody contracts that if they f-up, they get nothing. It's not the teams that are f-ing up here, it's the players. Hold them accountable. If anybody has set this whole system back, it's the ahole that ruled that Vick still gets his money despite being in jail. That's some bullshit they need to fix.

The whole idea of some arcane punishment meter based on the player's history, his standing, whether he wears boxers or briefs, etc. is just stupid. There's no way to make that even remotely fair to the team. Establish a clear set of rules for player infractions while in the NFL for individuals? That's motivation. And if not, they're gone.

Just my opinion, but I think this is liberal hooey.

While I can see Horses side of this argument, I can see the league side too and something everyone is possibly overlooking. Maybe not.

Professional Sports careers today are short lived, just a few years and most are gone. Few make it like Farve, Marino and others but there are exceptions.

And in today's world of instant new and information professional players are under the microscope more than ever.

Admittedly, signing that big money contract is just accepting a job and offering a service for a set amount of years, but being a player doesn't end when you leave the field or team facilities.

Being in the NFL is 24/7/365. Everything you do and everywhere you go people are watching and every action taken whether good or bad gets reported.

So it's pretty much like either Deion or Emmit Smith said when the Vick incident went down.

When you sign with the NFL you are the NFL, not just part time but all the time, so you have to make new friends and forget old ones. You can't do the things you are used to doing and you will have to change your lifestyle. That's the way things are and IF you want to stay in the league that's the way they'll be. There will be plenty of time to act like a fool when the playing days end.

When someone signs a contract with the US Military, they don't tell the high brass what they'll do and won't do for the duration of the contract, the NFL is no different. The rules are in place and operations are as they are for a reason.

Call the league Administration what ever you wish, but their intent is to keep the league clean and Top Shelf, otherwise in a few years it'll wind up like the NBA.

Players can either except the facts and fill the expectations or use that degree they supposedly got to find a real job. It's their choice........

Jump to Dallas TX for a sec.......

Jerry Jones has helped a couple of trouble makers out in the past and had success doing it. Look at TO, he runs that pie hole some, but Jerry hasn't had to bail his ass out of jail. Tank Johnson also wound up there, and now Pacman.

But Jerry knew what he was getting when he signed them.

IF his experiment fails, then hell yeah, let him pay the price. Instead of playing Pacman, play the league his salary and possible a draft pick. That'll make him think twice about wanting to keep thugs in the league. And that could be a good thing in the end.