The NFL officially goes live in the next few weeks, and for fans heading into the slowest month of the sports calendar, the kickoff to training camp is a welcome distraction. But the league known to swallow all others was anything but dormant this past offseason, too often swallowed itself by the kinds of headlines it could do without. Here we are again, recapping ugly incidents and PR blunders like a laundry list of incompetence, wondering if a game that has and does so much right will ever figure out how to stop getting so much wrong.
Why can’t the NFL stay out of its own way?
This is not to ignore the great acts of charity, kindness, philanthropy, and generosity also done this offseason by players across the country, but for every step forward, the NFL itself manages takes two more back, a perpetual cycle that understandably leaves fans weary of the roller coaster. From the ill-advised decision to go public with an anthem policy that neither satisfied either side of a divisive issue nor needed to be revealed at a time when no one was talking about it, to yet another public spat with a president over a White House Super Bowl invitation, missteps were aplenty.
A sampling:
■ The NFLPA filing suit over said anthem policy, angered that it was not involved in discussions to craft it.
■ Former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, forced to sell the team after his workplace was unmasked as hostile and toxic for women, making a contractual obligation for his successor to leave the enormous statue of him outside the stadium.
■ Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill having gone on record supporting the anthem policy (one that allows players to protest punishment free by staying in the locker room for the pre-game anthem) because it allows for the focus to stay on sports, but his son and team president Michael Bidwill using his in-house Twitter feed to voice his political support for a Supreme Court justice nominee.
■ The league declining to allow Chiefs offensive lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif put an MD on his jersey, missing the chance to celebrate the rare occurrence of having an active player with a medical degree, as if it would set some sort of uncontrollable precedent.
■ Former 49er Colin Kaepernick remaining locked out by all 32 owners, unable to secure even a tryout after his kneeling in protest started a movement.
■ The lingering shadow of Papa John’s founder and former CEO John Schnatter, whose long association with the league may be over, but whose ongoing individual associations with some franchises and owners feels so wrong after his recent admission of using racist language.
■ A DUI arrest of Cardinals GM Steve Keim and arrests for violent offenses of former players Kellen Winslow Jr. and Brandon Browner.
■ A long list of PED suspensions, led by the four-game benching of Patriots receiver Julian Edelman.
But the worst of the NFL, the issue that needs the most consistent approach but suffers from the most incoherent, came back in multiple ways, most recently when a literal black eye matched the many figurative ones listed above. Just this month, Bills running back LeSean McCoy was accused of involvement in a brutal home-invasion attack on his ex-girlfriend, revealed after Delicia Cordon’s friend posted an Instagram picture of Cordon’s battered face. The post, since deleted (the friend said on the advice of lawyers) called out McCoy as a serial abuser who played a part in a targeted attack to recover jewelry from a home the couple had previously shared. It was a heartbreaking reminder of the scourge of domestic violence, and also of the NFL’s terrible track record of dealing with the issue.
Of course, McCoy denied involvement, and of course he deserves the presumption of innocence while law enforcement investigates. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be watching how Roger Goodell and Co. handle McCoy’s employment status as that investigation proceeds, employment privilege they absolutely have the right to suspend until a determination is made.
Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if the NFL had a better history of caring for victims as much as they care about the league’s image, an approach that put silence above action. Never mind harkening back to the infamous 2014 Ray Rice video that served as tipping point on this pervasive problem and spawned a new supposedly hard-line policy for domestic violence offenders. We need only go back a few weeks to be reminded how much the NFL talks a big game but fails to deliver.
Six games for a first-time offense? Then why did Jameis Winston only get three? The Bucs’ quarterback will indeed sit out the first three games of the upcoming season, but rather than be afforded latitude via some obvious back-room negotiating, Winston could have and should have been made a slam-dunk example of being held to the standards of the personal conduct rule. The NFL’s own press release made that clear. Winston touched an Uber driver “in an inappropriate and sexual manner” the league admitted after completing investigating a March incident involving Winston. But they didn’t punish him the way they promised us they would.
They listened to his excuses (he later apologized for “the position” he put the driver in after repeatedly calling her a liar) and heard him promise to give up drinking alcohol. They ignored his personal history dating back to undergraduate days at Florida State, when he was accused of rape. They made it all too easy to doubt their sincerity in enforcing a policy they promised would help effect change.
Shame on the players who are the real perpetrators. But shame on the bosses who promise to hold them accountable but don’t, who can’t seem to avoid perpetual bad decisions. A long offseason is just about over, but a long list of problems won’t disappear so easily.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.