The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

NFL sends awful message with Rice suspension

By Maggie Hendricks


Ray Rice (Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports)

Ray Rice was suspended two games by the NFL for knocking out his fiancee. The incident was caught on tape. Rice entered a pre-trial diversion program.

Repeat offenders of the drug policy are subject to four-game suspensions. A violent tackle, done in the course of a game, will draw a single game suspension. Selling your autograph while still in college? That will get you five games off.

But in the NFL’s court, hitting a woman so hard that she becomes unconscious and has to be dragged out of an elevator only gets you a two-game suspension.

NFL, if you’re going to care about women, keeping the ones closest to your players safe is your first stop.

Don’t tell me you care about women’s health come October. Don’t pinkwash the whole league and pay lip service to how much you care about women. Don’t trot out breast cancer survivors as symbols of the NFL’s close relationship with women and then give a man who threatened a woman’s health — ON TAPE — a two-game suspension.

The NFL had an opportunity to send a clear and direct message about the consequences of domestic abuse. They could have looked past the PR campaign Rice and the Ravens are now putting on. They could have seen the press conference Rice and his now-wife participated in as the sham it was.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in four women will be abused in their lifetime. This year, 1.3 million women will be assaulted by their partner. The NFL could have said to the women who silently suffer through domestic violence that the biggest, richest league in the country has their backs.

Instead, they’re telling players that smoking a joint — which is legal in two states — is much worse than knocking out a woman.

http://q.usatoday.com/2014/07/24/nfl-sen...uspension/