Press "Enter" to skip to content

NFL has major issues

Oh my gosh, what a mess.

I mean, really, a mess cannot even begin to describe the kind of season the NFL just had.

I may have a bias here, but there was nothing even remotely positive about this last NFL season that I want to remember.

The Bears were beyond wretched.

I had to watch the Packers go to the NFC title game.

Worst of all, I had to endure the pain of Seattle handing Tom Brady another Super Bowl title.

But what really gets me about the 2014-2015 NFL season, is the complete disregard for moral codes and the shameful way commissioner Roger Goodell carried the NFL brand.

To put this in perspective, let’s hit the rewind button, and take a return trip to September 2014.

The video tape of Ray Rice knocking out his fiancé with a haymaker had just surfaced on the Internet.

A two-game suspension for Rice was handed down, which shocked football and non-football fans across the country.

Almost immediately after, Goodell had him suspended indefinitely to try and save some face.

However, the NFL still had a hand in mucking up the investigation after the Associated Press claimed the league had received the aforementioned video of Rice knocking out his fiancé before it was even leaked online.

There was no masking the NFL’s true feelings.

Following Rice’s act of debauchery, the disturbing case of Adrian Peterson’s child abuse arose, and the NFL took advantage of it.

By assuming there was a way to right their wrongs, the NFL suspended Peterson for the rest of the season.

Although it was clearly wrong for Peterson to beat his child, it became a scheme by Goodell to exploit this case by bringing down the hammer on Peterson after the fact, using his newfound ideals on domestic violence to pound in the nail.

Even with the news of Peterson’s suspension being overturned earlier this week, it cannot undo that damage.

However, it was when the New England Patriots got caught in “deflategate” that Goodell took any bit of credibility the NFL had left and burned it.

When that investigation began, it was clear there was something fishy about the Patriots, especially after their press conference.

No amount of Belichick talking about the science of balls, or Brady nervously fibbing through his teeth, could convince me there wasn’t anything dirty about that organization.

But the fact of the matter is the Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, used his higher standing over Goodell to halt the investigation before it even began.

Would that investigation have brought something incredibly game-changing to light?

Probably not, but we’ll never know for sure.

To top it all off, the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl.

I can’t be the only one that found it monumentally ironic that, on top of everything else that happened this season, a team that was accused of cheating ultimately won the Super Bowl, can I?

Even if I am the only one, it doesn’t change the fact that the NFL has become rotten. Obviously firing Goodell would be a good start.

But regardless, the mess of the NFL is one of the worst in professional sports, and it’s going to take a lot more than indefinite suspensions and “I’m sorry” press conferences to convince me otherwise.

Copyright © 2023, The Scout, Bradley University. All rights reserved.
The Scout is published by members of the student body of Bradley University. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the University.