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The NFL Needs to Stop the Hypocrisy

By Alan Schechter

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It hasn’t been a banner year for Roger Goodell and the NFL. “Deflategate” reigned supreme for far too long and domestic violence was rampant. The NFL has had a great deal of work to do to improve its image.

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Some recent news does very little to help.

October is a tough month for Steelers’ RB DeAngelo Williams. Being Breast Cancer Awareness month, it hits home for him, as he lost his mom and four aunts to the disease. So it makes sense that he would be interested in wearing pink for the entire season as a tribute. Williams made the request to the NFL. The NFL said no.

So it’s acceptable to wear the color in October, when the league is selling a line of clothing with the color pink in it. Wearing pink the entire year, however, is too big of a violation of the NFL’s extensive uniform policy, and could actually result in increasing fines.

And speaking of fines, let’s get to Cam Heyward. Cam, for anyone who doesn’t know, is the son of Craig “Iron Head” Heyward, running back who played in the NFL for 11 years from 1988-1998 with five different teams. Tragically, Iron Head passed away at the age of 39 after losing his battle with cancer. His son Cam went and honored his father by wearing his name in his eye black:

Here comes the NFL again. As Heyward noted in the Tweet above, the league fined him for wearing the eye black, likely again referencing the league’s policy on the uniforms.

Yes, the NFL does have rules regarding uniforms. The NFL and Roger Goodell like to make a big deal about how they are a league of rules. But, let’s talk about priorities and hypocrisy.

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The NFL does a lot of talking about how causes like the “Crucial Catch” campaign are important to them, and raising awareness is important to them, which is good. So it is all well and good for the players to wear pink during the month of October, when the new line of clothing is on sale. By the way, the NFL, with all of its awareness talk, doesn’t even donate the entire profit to Breast Cancer awareness.

But, when a guy comes to the league with a request, one to dedicate the entire year to his family, and to awareness of a cause that is “so important” to the NFL, he gets turned down. Taking it even further, a player is fined for wearing a tribute to his late father, UNDER HIS UNIFORM.

These two ideas are so terrible, the NFL can’t let them slip by without either denying the request, or punishing a player.

Now look at the flip side, and the hypocrisy becomes obvious. Adrian Peterson hit his child. His child. He is welcomed back to the NFL with open arms, as if the Messiah has walked back into Minnesota. Greg Hardy comes back after a domestic incident of his own involving a gun, and he is treated the same way. All anyone wants to know is what he is going to do to Tom Brady on Sunday.

The list hardly stops there with the suspensions and arrests. September was the first month in SIX YEARS with no player arrests. The NFL has players with violent crimes in their background that are recognized as stars. But all of these players get multiple chances.

So to summarize, violence and drugs is lower on the NFL’s priority list than uniform violations. Violent offenders are beloved, but apparently, small uniform violations are a big no-no to Roger Goodell and the NFL.

This is hypocrisy at its finest. The NFL needs to stop the hypocrisy immediately and get its priorities straight.

Frankly, the hypocrisy is embarrassing. The NFL should be ashamed.

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