Quote:
Originally Posted by macro
I disagree with Daugherty that everyone just needs to get over it. After all, if it's so unreasonable to expect professional football players to behave within the constraints of the law, then why don't the other 31 teams have nine players arrested in nine months?
That being said, if Lewis is going to insist on bringing in players with issues, then he needs to heed Daughterty's advice and "carefully construct a core of Good People". Thing is, there's not enough room on an NFL roster for a carefully constructed core large enough to deal with the issues this team has.
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I don't think the problems are limited to the Bengals. I'm sure many other teams in the NFL have just as many guys who smoke pot or drink and drive as the Bengals. It's just the Bengals have been the ones dumb enough to get caught.
Another thing I was thinking about was that maybe these guys are coming from places where they don't think they'll get pulled over. I myself have grown up in suburban cities notorious for passing out speeding tickets like halloween candy. When I drive, I am always keenly aware of police and speed traps because I've been conditioned to watch for them. But I know people who come from the big cities who just aren't that aware of the police when they're out driving and when they do see them, they don't think they'll get pulled over. So I've known a few guys who would keep things in their car they really shouldn't.
The city I currently live in makes a lot of their drug busts on routine traffic stops. I'd say they probably get more drug busts that way than the neighborhing college town and the large cities to the north and south. Why? Being a suburban community, the bulk of the work done by our officers involves traffic duty. They stop a ton of college kids going back and forth between the cities and the college town. College town and the cities don't have nearly as many officers monitoring traffic because they've got more pressing concerns (keeping the peace in College Town and fighting much more serious crime in the big cities). I've heard that the college kids seem honestly surprised when they get pulled over and don't realize just how long the smell of pot stays with you.
With that in mind, I don't think it's too far fetched to think that young professional athletes living in the Greater Cincinnati area have no clue about how things work in an area like Clermont County or Boone County and are just stupid when they choose to engage in illicit activity. Doesn't mean it's not going on elsewhere in the league. I'd be willing to there are quite a few NFL players on each team that like to partake of the "sticky icky."
My question is, if you feel the Bengals should take a hard line and make an example of a player who gets busted for pot or for drunken driving, does that mean the Reds should do the same thing when their players step out of line? I'm still amazed at the outrage towards Bengals players when Ryan Freel has essentially gotten a free pass for his transgressions. Granted, the Reds haven't had 9 players get busted. But still, Ryan Freel was downright plastered when he was busted for drunk driving. I never heard sanctimonious calls for his release after his arrest and what he did was arguable much more dangerous to society at large than what some of these Bengals players have been arrested for. Where do you draw the line? Do you have a no tolerance policy, or do you wait for the 5th guy who was unlucky enough to get caught?