The horses are out and Roger is ready to shut the barn door.
Yep, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell got the message — that a two game suspension given to Ray Rice for slapping his then fiancee around was another slap in the face to women everywhere and would do little to prevent domestic abuse by NFL players in the future.
According to The Washington Post, Goodell is considering a new policy that would result in a four-to-six game suspension for a first domestic abuse offense and a full season for a second.
That’s good news and bad news if you’re the wife of an abusive NFL player. It might serve as a deterrent and make it safer for you to live under the same roof with him.
The bad news is that, if he does beat you up and you report it, your household income could be reduced by a few million dollars.
If an NFL wife has already caused her husband to lose 25% or 30% of his salary, how hard would it be for him to talk her out of pressing charges the second time if it means not losing eight or 10 million dollars?
Have you noticed that discussions about the punishment fitting the crime come up a lot in the NFL?
If it’s not domestic abuse, it’s a DUI or an assault.
Sometimes it’s murder. Of course, Roger Goodell probably won’t have to suspend Aaron Hernandez.
If the district attorneys and judges were a little tougher on pro athletes who break the law, maybe Goodell wouldn’t feel compelled to increase the penalties.
For knocking his fiance unconscious and dragging her out of an elevator by her hair, Rice got two games from Goodell, but he got bupkus from the state of New Jersey.
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Michael Donio and and D.A. Jim McClain kept Rice out of jail by putting him in a diversion program for first time offenders.
They weren’t feeling quite as merciful when single mother of two Shaneen Allen was pulled over for a traffic violation and volunteered to the cop that she was carrying a gun, for which she had a Pennsylvania concealed-carry permit. (She lives across the river in Philadelphia.)
She didn’t know that New Jersey didn’t recognize Pennsylvania’s permit to carry. (We’ll leave the stupidity of that for another time.)
Allen was arrested and neither Donio nor McClain has been willing to dismiss the charges or send her to a diversion program.
Allen is looking at a mandatory 42-month prison sentence if she’s convicted.
If she is convicted and does the jail time, she probably won’t get a standing ovation when she goes back to any of her three jobs as Rice did when he showed up for the first day of Baltimore Ravens training camp.
Shaneen Allen decided to become a legal gun owner after she had been robbed twice. Her intent was to prevent herself from being the victim of another crime.
Ray Rice committed a crime and got a pass.
The media outrage over the NFL’s puny penalty was long and loud.
Do you recall hearing a lot of outrage over Rice avoiding jail time?
It’s time to direct some loud and long outrage at Judge Michael Donio and District Attorney Jim McClain.
Let’s make Shaneen Allen’s story as well known as Ray Rice’s.
Pittsburgh ex-TV sportscaster, columnist and talk show host John Steigerwald is the author of the Pittsburgh sports memoir, “Just Watch The Game.” Follow him on Twitter.
