Fight The Real Enemy

It's old news that the NFL fined Brian Urlacher $100,000 for wearing a Vitamin Water cap and drinking said refreshment during a pre-Super Bowl press conference. The fine was because Gatorade is the NFL's sponsor for all things liquid and supporting a competitor is just something they aren't willing to allow. I don't have much sympathy for Urlacher. NFL players sign contracts that cover a multitude of off-field issues and one of them has to do with promoting companies who aren't NFL sponsors at NFL events. You can't do it and so you deserve to be punished if you do.

But should you be punished more for that than you are for beating up the mother of your children? Or for being Tank Johnson? The San Diego Union-Tribune has an interesting list of NFL players running afoul of the law since 2000 which gives you what they did and the punishment they received for it and two things really stand out. First, most players don't even get a slap on the wrist for their misadventures and, second, if they do get fined it's usually much less than the 100K Urlacher got for wearing the wrong cap at the wrong time.

Tank Johnson, for example, was a rare player who got punished. He received house arrest, four months in jail and a miniscule $2,500 fine from the authorities. The NFL hasn't decided what, if anything, to do at this point. Rod Smith knocked around the mother of his children and got hit for a 25K "conditional" fine. I'm not sure what the conditions were but I'm guessing he met them and didn't fork over any money. Samari Rolle, Brad Hopkins and the sex boat Vikings are just a few of the other players who had to fork over one game check for abusing women. The NFL likes to point to the way they punished Pacman Jones and Chris Henry as a sign that they are tough on bad actors but it would be a lot more effective if they didn't treat sponsors as more significant victims than people.