Clifford
Footballguy
Poppycock!!Balderdash!The system again. It's the system's fault. They have no power to decide for themselves and to learn. The system made them do it. I don't see any one of them being forcibly coerced into this, so that must mean at some point that the person making the decisions must be themselves. And just like with all of us, some of those bad choices have bad endings.Your position implies they have limited or no free will. I reject that argument.Who said anything about enabling or coddling or shifting blame as a solution? In fact those are the problems.My point is that many athletes, particularly the ones who are good enough to make a career out of it, are surrounded with a sense of invincibility and entitlement. The problem is that many of the people who should be shaping them into responsible adults instead selfishly use them to further their careers while turning a blind eye to their misdeeds. The ones who really struggle likely have additional issues of lack of accountability from their family and friends as well. So having seldom or never been held accountable in their entire lives why would you suddenly expect them to have the ability to do so when they have just been given millions of dollars?And I consider your position one of well intentioned but thoughtless enabling. I was an athlete and I played with some kids out of very poor and bad backgrounds. Some gratefully took advantage of the opportunity and some simply didn't give a damn. But I never saw one of the kids who didn't give a damn change until they wanted their lives to change, no matter how much coddling and nose wiping was provided for them. And the more those kids were enabled through all the excuse making and protection, the more they expected to get away with continuing with their bad behavior.I understand the desire to try to shift blame away from these guys, but ultimately they are responsible (or irresponsible) to themselves. If they are adult enough to be paid millions, they are adult enough to be treated like adults.I consider that to be an obtuse conclusion that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the reality of athletes lives before and after they are given millions of dollars.I just don't get this position. So a guy is man enough to garner massive paychecks - sometimes in the millions per year range, but he requires hand holding and nursing to maintain a modicum of behavior to continue to earn?When do these "boys" become man enough to have it register what they are placing at risk and taking some personal responsibility? Seems to me that owning the responsibility for one's behavior is necessary for responsible behavior. Enabling the behavior with excuses is the last thing that is going to positively affect these guys.pghrob said:The NFL is ill equipped to deal with how to support potential superstars who struggle with chronic use of recreational alcohol and marijuana. They have proven that they do not yet have a solution on how to find a way to help these young, talented, but troubled users who cannot control their desire to use these recreational substances. Until the figure out a way to help them, the NFL and its fans are going to be left wondering what could have been with guys like Blackmon and perhaps Gordon.
Players come and go. The game goes on with or without them.
Even the majority of the ones who do take responsibility for their actions, and that is the majority of athletes, end up losing all of their money within a few years after they are no longer getting paid to play. And that relates the system failing to teach them how to deal with a huge windfall and all the pitfalls associated with it.
So just telling them that they need to be accountable and figure it out, which is exactly what the NFL punishment policy endorses, is at best outdated and at worst draconian.
Guys like Blackmon (definitely) and Gordon (possibly) need counseling and education not being shown the door and isolating them from what may be their only true support system (or at least the team should be their support system). There is no reason the NFL cannot provide the help they need during the process of punishing them for their misdeeds.
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2014
hat about this all of a sudden, just wanted to share my change of heart I had today. At the end of the day, none of us know, but we'll find out soon!
