Josh Brown Case Proves That the NFL Learned All the Wrong Lessons from Ray Rice

Imagine that you are a top executive in a major industry that also happens to be a cultural institution—you are a Roger Goodell type, in other words—and you want to address domestic violence in the most ineffective, superficial and counterproductive way possible. 

We will address why on Earth anyone would want to do such a thing in a moment. For now, just imagine that’s your agenda.

You can’t just ignore domestic violence, mind you. That might damage the brand and undermine the no-nonsense, law-and-order image you strive to cultivate. Plus, there was that incident with the video two years ago. Can’t let that happen again. So you want to take a tough public stand, but for some reason, you want to make sure that it is nothing more than a tough public stand.

Lucky for you, there’s a proven game plan you can follow:

Trivialize the crime. Recast habitual, chronic abuse that spans months or years as an isolated moment of weakness or lapse in judgment.

Marginalize the victim. The folks in public relations will tell you that flat-out blaming the victim doesn’t market-test very well anymore, so it’s best to help the accused to control the narrative, handle the allegations with maximum skepticism and let public opinion follow the path of least resistance.

Be inconsistent. Consistency is your second-greatest enemy when purposely undermining your stated values.

Be evasive and secretive. Transparency is your greatest enemy.

Be authoritarian. Make victims of abuse seeking justice or relief choose between the health and welfare of their families and the judgments of a cold, ruthless, dictatorial institution.

Show little respect for privacy or confidentiality. Make victims of abuse also worry about which details of their lives will become the intellectual property of midday talk-show hosts if they cooperate.

Ignore the root causes of domestic violence. Don’t treat it like a complex spectrum of behaviors or a social ill with deep implications for families, neighborhoods and society. Remember: It’s just one more darned PR headache you have to deal with.

Scale your response to the media reaction, not the crime itself. It’s just one more darned PR headache, after all. No need to overreact when a minor player does something off camera.

Don’t bother rehabilitating or re-educating the perpetrator. Rehabilitation? What are you, some kind of hippie?

That’s a pretty thorough game plan. And if there is one thing the NFL excels at, it’s creating and following game plans. The scripted series of plays above is guaranteed to turn the phrase “We have zero tolerance for domestic violence” into more of those soothing nonsense syllables coaches and executives like to repeat, like “We are going to establish the run.”

With Josh Brown’s one-game suspension for a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy, coupled with the baffling memo justifying its decision, the NFL reset its domestic violence awareness to pre-Ray Rice levels. The league demonstrated that the only lesson it learned from the Troubles of 2014 was that if the league talks a good game and waits for the news cycle to simmer down, it won’t have to do anything messy like address domestic violence seriously, do the right thing or even follow through on its own half-hearted condemnations.

Brown was arrested for domestic violence assault in May 2015. The arrest was not publicized, but the NFL (to its minimal credit) learned of it and began an independent investigation, as per the Personal Conduct Policy revised in the wake of Rice’s domestic violence case. If Brown was found to be in violation of the Personal Conduct Policy—which does not require criminal charges or a guilty verdict—he faced a “baseline” six-game suspension, according to the Personal Conduct Policy. Supposedly. Theoretically.

Upon news of Brown’s suspension, the New York Daily News quickly obtained police reports, a pair of 911 recordings on consecutive days and a lengthy statement from Brown’s wife (now divorced) to a detective and court official detailing 20 violent incidents spanning six years. Brown pushed his wife into a door when she was pregnant, once shoved her into a mirror and threatened her numerous times, according to her statement.

The NFL claimed that it obtained none of this information. The victim declined to speak to league investigators, and apparently Daily News reporters are better at obtaining court documents than the NFL’s army of super-sleuths.

“Our investigators had insufficient information to corroborate prior findings,” the NFL wrote in its statement about Brown’s suspension. “The NFL therefore made a decision based on the evidentiary findings around this one incident [Brown’s arrest] as provided to us by the District Attorney.”

That decision somehow amounted to one-sixth of the “baseline” suspension, though the NFL failed to explain why. The Giants, who knew about the arrest and investigation when they signed Brown to a two-year contract this offseason, hid behind the NFL’s coattails.

“We support the league office in their decision and their stance on personal conduct,” Giants head coach Ben McAdoo said in a …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com