NFL has 14 players suspended to start season, but MLB has steroids!
One of the biggest double standards in all of sports is how the NFL gets a free pass when it comes to criticizing players for off-field problems, yet because baseball had the steroid era MLB players might as well be the devil reincarnate.
Fourteen players will start the 2010 NFL season suspended:
Ben Roethlisberger – wasn’t charged, but accused of sexual assault twice in one year
Cary Williams – domestic dispute
Quinn Ojinnaka – arrested and charged with battery, accused of throwing his wife down the stairs of their house and throwing her out
Aqib Talib – punched a cab driver, charged with resisting arrest without violence and simple battery
Jonathan Babineaux – substance abuse
Robert James – PEDs
Santonio Holmes – violated substance abuse policy
Shawn Nelson – failed drug test (supposedly marijuana)
LenDale White – failed drug test (supposedly marijuana)
Vincent Jackson – two DUIs
Leroy Hill – arrested on marijuana-possession charge
Johnny Jolly – felony drug charge
Brian Cushing – PEDs
Gerald McRath – PEDs
Let’s see, we’ve got battery, sexual assault, failed drug tests, PEDs and one punched cab driver. And yet somehow, Pacman Jones’ name didn’t make the list.
When an NFL player is suspended, one of the first things that fans ask is, “How long will he be out for?”
When a MLB player is caught using steroids, it’s: “He disrespected the game! Cut off his f**king hands! Prepare him for sacrifice to the baseball Gods!”
Mark McGwire tried to get a job earlier this year as the Cardinals’ hitting coach and you would have sworn that he set a school on fire that happened to be next to a church, which also burned down. Yet Santonio Holmes is being viewed as the ultimate late round sleeper in fantasy football drafts because he’s going to be out for the first four games for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.
Look, I realize that steroids can have a profound effect on scared records, wins and whether or not players have an unnatural advantage over another player.
But I’m sorry, steroids take a back seat to domestic violence, battery and sexual abuse. Wrong is wrong and cheating the game of baseball is definitely grounds for being scrutinized for the rest of your life but come on – NFL players are breaking the law and it’s not even Page 7B news anymore.
The double standard between how NFL and MLB players are viewed is appalling.
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I don’t really follow the MLB, but presumably it has its fair share of misdemeanor and felony offenders as well, right? It’s not really fair to compare the NFL’s off field problems with MLB’s on-the-diamond problems. (I do agree that the NFL is given something of a pass when it comes to PEDs, but that has a lot to do with how the league turns a blind eye to the problem.)
As fans, if someone screws up off the field/diamond, they’ve screwed up their own life, but when they cheat by using PEDs, they are soiling the sanctity of the game (and affecting OUR lives).
Besides, I seem to remember a few NFLers (Mike Vick, Plaxico Burress) who were destroyed in the media due to their off-field antics.
It’s because the cheating is WAY more tangible in the MLB than it is in the NFL. Guys like Bonds who go from skinny and stealing bases to jacked and breaking all of the home run records can’t be compared to defensive lineman who go from jacked to a little more jacked. The fact is, steroids don’t nearly change the game as much as they do in baseball as they do in the NFL.
John,
I don’t have hard numbers and maybe I should have compiled them before writing this post (although I did do a quick Google search and didn’t find the results I was looking for). Yes, MLB has felons as well, although I never remember 14 baseball players being suspended before the first pitch is thrown on a new season.
Of course, there are more NFL players then there are MLB players, so that obviously plays into it. If you’re speaking purely from a numbers standpoint (which you often do), then my argument has more holes than Swiss cheese.
That said, I stand by point main point that most NFL players are given a free pass (outside of the big names, of course, although even then…) by fans, where as MLBer’s have ruined the game, soiled records, etc.
But it’s a fair point you bring up about the differences between ruining your own life and ruining the game. However, that also strengthens my point about putting all of this in perspective:
“You threw your wife down a set a of stairs? No problem – when will you be back on the field?”
“You used steroids? I want you dead.”
I think you’re exaggerating in your last two quotes there.
Part of the furor over the steroid users is that they won’t admit to it. Bonds and Clemens still steadfastly refuse to admit that they used. Of course they are going to continue to come under fire. I don’t hear anyone calling for Andy Pettite’s head.
NBA and NFL have way more arrests than the MLB. Thats not hard to figure out. Hmm, I wonder why? lol