clamped on with your iron fists

I was going to try to write about something other than football this week, but that was ruined when ESPN reported that NFL Comissioner Roger Goodell has reinstated Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams. Williams retired from the Dolphins before the 2004 season rather than take a four-game suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy. After returning in 2005, Williams was banned for the entire 2006 football season. It was reported that Williams failed a fifth drug test in the spring of 2007. Still, none of this stopped Goodell from reinstating the league's most notorious offender of their substance abuse policy for the rest of the 2007 season. This latest news is the ultimate example of how unfair Goodell's treatment of the Cincinnati Bengals has been, since Goodell refused to reinstate Odell Thurman, who had fewer offenses than Williams and the recently reinstated Koren Robinson. As bad as Goodell has been, I had a hard time believing that he would actually reinstate Williams. It appears I was very wrong.

The following passage is a rant I sent to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com:

How glaringly obvious is Roger Goodell's anti-Bengals bias after today's announcement that Ricky Williams would be reinstated to the NFL, while Odell Thurman still sits suspended? Goodell has now reinstated Williams and Koren Robinson, two players who had many more offenses than Thurman, but only Odell has been singled out for extra punishment. Goodell has done nothing but play favorites when it comes to punishing players and coaches. His punishments have been arbitrary and inconsistent. There's no logical explanation why Thurman would be denied reinstate while players with similar cases are allowed to play again.

On a similar note, there's the NFL Player Association's announcement that it would appeal Goodell's decision not to shorten Pacman Jone's suspension, but the NFLPA has left Thurman--who has had far fewer run-ins with the law than Jones--to fend for him self. Is there any other conclusion we can come to other than that Thurman is being treated this way because he is a Bengal?

I have said it before and I will say it again: the NFL's system is broken. One man cannot make these kind of decisions. There needs to be some kind of panel that doles out punishment and rules on suspensions and fines. I'm sick of Goodell waking up on the wrong side of the bed and deciding to lash out at a Bengals player--like with the completely unfounded one game suspension of Jonathan Joseph earlier in the season.

Mike Brown needs to start making some noise. As the owner, he's the only one with any real pull with the commissioner, and the only chance the Bengals have of defending their players. I want to make it perfectly clear: I think Bengals players who break the rules should be punished. But they need to be punished to the same degree as everyone else. My problem isn't that Williams was reinstated, it's that Williams was reinstated while Thurman was not. The bad news is that Goodell is only a couple years into his tenure as commissioner, and it wouldn't surprise me to see him turn the NFL into the kind of disaster that other major leagues like the NBA and MLB have become. He's done little to uphold the integrity of the game by giving cheaters mere slaps on the wrists, issuing cease-and-desist letters over petty issues like church Super Bowl parties, and trying to take away the contribution of fans at home games. I think the next few years will result with the continued alienation of fans, sending the NFL down a slippery slope of mediocrity.