Quote Originally Posted by edczxcvbnm View Post
Finally! All sports should be doing this. Teams rarely take it upon themselves to promote this kind of image because they drafted, payed and trained these players. Why would they want to suspend them? It hurts their team.
That's exactly what allowed the Jail Blazers scandal in the NBA to get out of hand in Portland. And besides, some of the players signed/traded to the TrailBlazers already had a rap sheet to begin with, which only got bigger while they were at Portland (a similar situation happened in Cincinnati last year with the Bengals, as two of the eight players arrested were arrested for incidents that happened before the Bengals drafted them, not to mention the fact that Chris Henry's conduct problems started in college; the fact that he was hanging out with questionable players, though probably not by choice, since they're his teammates, made his situation worse). And what did Portland do about it? As far as I'm concerned, they basically covered it up by trading off players and not re-signing them once they became free agents (only one of them, to my knowledge, was cut from the team as a result of any of his incidents, and that was Qyntel Woods, who was cut after he was being investigated by the FBI in connection with a dog-fighting ring). And David Stern did no better with regards to handling this, as he would only suspend players for like, 8 games (a VERY small fraction of the season in the NBA) for personal conduct issues like this, yet, only hand out the stiff suspensions for major on-court incidents, such as the Palace Brawl in Detroit (which saw Ron Artest suspended for the remainder of the season, as well as fans having their season tickets revoked for their involvement). My perception of him is, he is, always has been, and always will be, more concerned with the marketability of his star players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, etc. than the personal conduct of his league's players, thus further increasing the perception that NBA players are "thugs."

Now entering his second year as NFL Commissioner, and he's now placing player conduct as his absolute top priority (he essentially has been doing so since he became Commissioner, as seen with the stiffer fine on T.O. for spitting in DeAngelo Hall's face, the lengthy suspension handed down to Albert Haynesworth for stomping on Andre Gurode's head, and the new "Shawne Merriman Rule"). I think Goodell's the best commissioner we have in sports right now. And I'm pretty sure he must be thinking, "Why didn't my predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, toughen up on player conduct before I got here?"