How 5 Years of NFL Controversies Have Changed the World

We used to turn to football to escape our everyday problems. Now we look to football to explain our everyday problems. 

For five consecutive years, the opening of the NFL season has come saddled with some major legal or sociopolitical controversy, the kind fans couldn’t ignore no matter how hard we jammed giant foam fingers in our ears. Instead of turning on the games and turning off our minds, we selected our fantasy starters, ordered jumbo nachos, and then held solemn referendums on topics that would be better suited for political settings…if only our politicians were better suited for political settings.

These kickoff controversies follow a now-familiar path: a football player, team or executive involved in an incident that is related to a major societal capital-I Issue. The player/team/executive then becomes the subject of a proxy debate for the Issue. Instead of asking, “How could we let domestic violence fester for so long in society?” we ask, “How could Ray Rice do such a thing?”

The proxy debate gives fans who are wary of discussing serious political topics a safe way to talk about subjects like domestic violence, LGBT rights or racial problems. It also forces those discussions into taprooms, living rooms and fantasy drafts, making the topics and problems more a part of our lives. So the NFL is really filling an important cultural role, despite itself.

Unfortunately, the kickoff controversy debates, useful as they are, can take a turn for the idiotic when we all take extreme sides on Twitter, or when midday sports talk hosts weigh in and make Twitter fights look like Plato’s Apology.

No matter. Even when things get dumbed down, we can still learn lessons about ourselves as a society.

The NFL can learn lessons, too. The controversies can feel like a runaway tractor-trailer full of nightmares when we are in the weeds. But it’s possible to come out of these scandals a little wiser. That’s a good thing, because they aren’t going to stop any time soon.

Let’s look back on five years of kickoff controversies to see how these proxy debates work and discover just how far we have come.

   

2012 Incident: The Saints Bounty Scandal

Social Issues: Our changing attitude toward violence; the right to a fair appeal process.

Brief Recap: Saints coach Sean Payton and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams received one-year suspensions when a league investigation revealed evidence of a systematic bounty program for potentially injurious hits. The NFL handed down suspensions for the coaches in March and four players in May, but legal action involving linebacker Jonathan Vilma and other players lingered through the season. The Friday before the first Sunday of games in 2013, initial suspensions against the players were vacated.

Proxy Debates: Where is the line between demanding rugged, physical action and advocating violence? Has society lost its taste for a certain level of violence…or lost its edge in the name in the name of safety consciousness and political correctness? What is the responsibility of an employee when an employer demands something unethical and potentially dangerous?

The Bounty Scandal also morphed into one of the first great Goodell-as-Caesar dramas, making us ponder the wisdom of letting authority figures play the judge-jury-executioner role.

Finally, this scandal established the official template for most future scandals:

NFL player/coach/team does something. There’s a massive public outcry for the NFL to act. NFL acts. There’s a massive public outcry against the NFL’s action.

The Debate, Dumbed Down: Coaches are monsters who would order mass decapitations if they thought it would get them a win versus You might as well send the quarterback out there in a tutu if defenders can’t body-slam him into the ground three seconds after the throw.

What We Learned About Ourselves: We chuckled about bounties in the Buddy Ryan era. But concussion and CTE awareness made it hard to scream rip the quarterback’s head off at the television without feeling a little guilty. The Bounty Scandal redrew the boundaries of what many fans considered acceptable violence levels on the field.

What the NFL Learned About Itself: Coaching along the lines of the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket had been slowly going out of style anyway, and the Bounty Scandal nudged it along. The NFL now is a little more cautious with its tough-guy rhetoric. That can only help when coaches at lower levels realize that ordering impressionable young Johnny to KILL MAIM DESTROY is not a great idea.

Goodell must also have enjoyed issuing heavy-handed punishments, then navigating though months of appeals, countersuits and reversals, because that’s pretty much all he has done with his time ever since.

    

2013 Incidents: The Short Career of Michael Sam; the Dolphins Bullying Affair

Social Issues: LGBT rights; tolerance, acceptance and inclusion in society; workplace hostility.

Brief Recap: Openly-gay defender Sam was released by the Rams during final roster cuts after a productive and (mostly) non-controversial …

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