I support the position of "The NFL is a Business" (aka its a Company)
No upstanding company allows conduct of the sort, why should the NFL?
And furthermore, with more cameras, mics, and coverage of everything that happens on and off the field, the odds of one of those words coming over on air grows every year.
Aeneas Williams never swore while playing. Or at least he was very controlled in how often he did. Theres no excuse to why other players cant also.
I agree with you that we should all hold ourselves to a higher standard, and wish we all could in theory abide by it. This would be the optimal way.
But I don't see this happening as our world is so imperfect. Also there is a difference between curse words and slurs, but in this context you would have to legislate them all.
What's more is that the comparison is a bit apples and oranges. On the football field you are playing with a controlled or sometimes uncontrolled rage. That's the only way to play NFL football. With that, mental errors happen, and some of them include taunting, threatening, slurs, and curse words. (probably more then that). Players like Aeneas (a minister), or Fitz are what we should be teaching children to be like, and not the morons.
I don't think we should throw a football player in jail because a defensive lineman tells an offensive linemen that he's going kill that person's mother and eat her. There's tons of things on the field that are said that would either be crimes or the very least make the personal seem like a psychopath off the field.
When it comes to cursing, alot of cursing happens in the business world as well, at least among equals or superiors towards subordinates. We all know what happens when a subordinate talks that way to a superior. We may not see it because cameras aren't there, but I don't think visibility of one or the other should alter anything. If anything we have been on a long pathway where the FCC keeps removing dirty words from censorship. But strangely adding other ones.
Every game I hear multiple dirty words get caught by the microphones. Like many people I can also read lips decently, especially the curse words. We're inundated with this stuff already all the time, and the last thing I think about when thinking of the NFL are the curse words I hear.
It's not an excuse as we should all do better to train people not to use slurs. But an excuse is only an excuse when someone doesn't do something to better the situation because they use 'the world isn't perfect' excuse not to do something. The best way is to continue to teach people not to use it, and so a person can notice what reality is while also pushing to make reality better. It's incorrect to stand all the way on one side or the other imo, because there are no sides.
The NFL is different then your average or fortune 500 business, and the bigger travesty would be rewarding a lesser team a playoff spot because their players met some standard of being nicer. But that's what can happen when they start giving free yardage and free first downs away. The NFL would be messing around with something very important; playoffs, bonuses, jobs, all for something that isn't very important... words between football players, and many times these differences will negatively affect 3rd parties with various tiebreakers. I think it's important we remember what they are trying to influence behavior wise, and what they actually are game wise going to influence and take some stock in it.
Also when you read various memo's in business you see all sorts of similar disdain towards others. Many supposedly upstanding companies. Whether you see Goldman Sachs talking about its clients as Muppets to be abused, or various safety things by 1st world corporations on 3rd world land. We should realize that our civility is all in our minds, and our minds have hidden from them many of the real facts that would again suggest that not only are words on a football field far less important, at least the person stating them is being completely honest.
Taunting is a safety issue, which is what sets it apart from this. It's also a specific action(s) attached to words, not just words themselves.
I also thought it was stupid that at one point in the NFL it was a penalty if you took your helmet off one step from the sideline. These are the sorts of rules that are just idiotic imo, and cause much more trouble then they alleviate.
. Time to hire some lip readers to go along with the tattoo experts.
