Adrian Peterson News & Football related discussion

SumnerH

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Tony C said:
 But the true sadists were the Catholic nuns who would pick us up by our ears -- god now that did hurt.
I remember even in the early 80s reading about how that caused permanent hearing loss in some (not many/most, but some) children. Anyone have links confirming or refuting that idea?

I think it was even a very mainstream Dickens or Little House kind of book that presented that trauma very matter of factly. Great Brain, maybe?
 

Spacemans Bong

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Tony C said:
Seriously? I've heard of plenty of people who turn against a liberal upbringing by getting much more conservative, including spanking, though they probably wouldn't describe it as whipping.
 
I think part of the problem here is the ad hominem (sp?) statements -- any spanking is equated to "whipping" or "beating." There's all sorts of differentiations and to conflate them all into scare words like whipping/beating is probably a bit intellectually lazy. I agree with the basic notion that we're a better world for having changed the normalcy with which kids used to be hit, but I think implicitly equating a spank on the rump to get a kid's attention to what AP did with a switch will likely just get hackles raised. And, worse, it lessens the crime AP seems to have committed as if it's just spanking. No: he beat up his kid, which is sick. Light spanking may be something I'm against, but plenty of people do it with no sadism or pleasure, I assume (and, yes, I assume that someone like AP is getting some level of sadism out against a defenseless kid) and don't deserve to be equated to an abuser.
 
Well, that's a circular argument - I'm sure almost all 50s parents were incredibly conservative compared to today, and there are liberal parents. So some of those parents must have rebelled against Dad beating them with a belt after coming home from the factory because they got an F on Miss Dawson's math test.
 
I agree with you on the light spanking part. My parents were very liberal (although my dad gave me a well-deserved clip around the ears when I swore at him when I was 14 - hardly child abuse since I was bigger than he was by that time), but they did swat me on the butt a few times. I hated it, but I don't think it's made me angry against the world.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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ThePrideofShiner said:
ESPN is reporting that the Vikings have placed Adrian Peterson onto the exempt list requiring him to stay away from the team.
If they're smart they'll just keep their mouths shut. Everybody already knows this is a result of PR/sponsorship backlash, no use giving some dumb apology or justify it by citing some mysterious "new information."
 

Tyrone Biggums

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I still don't understand the lack of backlash over Ray McDonald...Terrell Suggs should also be out of the league for dragging his wife from a car. I guess since there is no social media/video trail it's okay. I guess the message is don't leave media evidence behind if you want to play.

If you're going to ban AP then you have to ban Hardy McDonald and Suggs too. I don't give a crap if the Suggs incident was two years ago or not he dragged his wife from a car which is actually worse than what Ray Rice did. If we are going to be the moral majority than it's all or nothing.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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If you're going to ban AP then you have to ban Hardy McDonald and Suggs too. I don't give a crap if the Suggs incident was two years ago or not he dragged his wife from a car which is actually worse than what Ray Rice did. If we are going to be the moral majority than it's all or nothing.
If you are going down this road, here are some other players who will need to miss games: Ray McDonald and Chris Cook of the San Francsico 49ers, Tony McDaniel and Kevin Williams of the Seattle Seahawks, Brandon Marshall and Santonio Holmes of the Chicago Bears, Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers, Dez Bryant of the Dallas Cowboys, Erik Walden of the Indianapolis Colts, Donte Whitner of the Cleveland Browns, Randy Starks of the Miami Dolphins and Frostee Rucker of the Arizona Cardinals. And these are only players who have been arrested.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/nfl-controversy/still-playing-12-nfl-players-have-domestic-violence-arrests-n204831

I've said this before and I stand by this - IMO the NFL is going to go down a rabbit hole pretty quickly if it decides that it has to be the finder of fact in DV and other abuse cases.
 

Awesome Fossum

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wade boggs chicken dinner said:
I've said this before and I stand by this - IMO the NFL is going to go down a rabbit hole pretty quickly if it decides that it has to be the finder of fact in DV and other abuse cases.
Yup. And I guarantee a huge percentage of players use corporal punishment on their kids.
 

dcmissle

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The League has 1696 players on active rosters, another 320 on practice squads, and we're talking about 4 guys.
 

Van Everyman

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Deadspin with a good piece on corporal punishment that sounds like Dr. Leather wrote it:

That's what corporal punishment is. It's a failure. It's a complete breakdown of communication between parent and child. Children are unpredictable, reckless, and occasionally violent. They can drive otherwise rational humans into fits of rage.
Tho the writer admits they have "dabbled" in corporal punishment themselves:

Spanking and beating your kid teaches your kid to talk with violence. It validates hitting as a legitimate form of communication. Everything is modeled. I have yelled at my kids, and then seen them yell. I have smacked my kid, and then watched her smack someone else. They don't learn to be good from any of it. They don't learn to sit still and practice piano sonatas. All they learn is, Hey, this works! And then they go practice what you just preached. Beating a kid creates an atmosphere of toxicity in a house that lingers forever: One beating leads to the next, and to the next, and to the next, until parents don't even know why they're beating the kid anymore. They just do. Once it is normalized, it takes root. Parents begin to like the habit. Those pictures of Peterson's kid? The violence can get worse ... much worse ... so much worse it's astonishing.
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/why-do-people-hit-their-kids-1634802919?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
 

mt8thsw9th

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wade boggs chicken dinner said:
Chris Cook of the San Francsico 49ers
 
Not saying that I disagree, but Cook did miss plenty of games as the Vikings left him inactive for much of that season. This is why the response to AP was kind of puzzling (and purely talent-related).
 

glennhoffmania

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So once again a decision is made, the public reacts, and the decision is changed.  The NFL is run by a bunch of clowns.  I wonder why the public pressure to get rid of Goodell seems to have zero traction.
 

Ralphwiggum

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I think we have to draw a distinction between league punishment and team punishment.  It is important that the League be as consistent as they can be in punishing guys who have done similar things wrong so as not to be seen to be favoring one team over another, or one player over another.  Of course they have failed miserably at this and continue to fall all over themselves in the handling of Rice, Hardy and Peterson.
 
I don't feel like teams necessarily need to be consistent if the are imposing discipline on their own players.  The teams are all separately owned, and each team's ownership and/or management can decide for themselves if they want to react more quickly than the league is reacting to impose discipline on guys who they don't feel should be out there for some period of time.  That's what the Vikings and Panthers did on Sunday, and what the 49ers didn't do.  Just because Peterson is not going to play for the Vikings doesn't mean the Panthers will come to the same decision, and then the fans and sponsors of those two organizations can decide for themselves whether this issue matters to them, and how they are going to react.
 
I think there are all kinds of issues with the way the NFL reacted to the public outcry over Ray Rice, but I have no issues with the Ravens' decision to cut him, though, or the Vikings' decision to initially reinstate Peterson and then change their minds due to the pressure being put on them by sponsors.  Sponsors taking dollars off the table for individual teams who then react and take guys off the field who have gotten themselves into these kinds of situations is much more likely to be a tipping point on this issue than anything that happens at the NFL level.
 

Scriblerus

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The Vikings appear to have used public response as a barometer.  Based on the response to the Rice situation, they suspended AP for the Patriots game.  When the public debate on corporeal punishment looked like it had supporters as well as those against it, they decided that they could play AP.  Then the Governor spoke out and sponsors began to walk away, and it was time to pull AP again.
 
The NFL continues to look disengenuous through all of this, and I hope that Goodell is not let off the hook.  At this point with the next scandal, whatever team the player works for should just set up a phone/text survey, a la American Idol to gauge public opinion before acting.
 
--If you think the player should be suspended for one game, call or text...
--If you think the player should be suspended for two games, call or text...
--If you think the player should be indefinitely suspended call or text...
 

glennhoffmania

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So is he basically done for the season now?  There's no way the case is resolved in the next few weeks, correct?
 

soxfan121

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wade boggs chicken dinner said:
And these are only the ones who have been arrested. 
 
Should the NFL look into a psychic who can help divine the status of the other 1991 who haven't been arrested? Or assume them all guilty until they can prove their innocence?
 
"When did you stop beating your wife?" is an example of this kind of thinking. 
 

Devizier

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soxfan121 said:
 
Should the NFL look into a psychic who can help divine the status of the other 1991 who haven't been arrested? Or assume them all guilty until they can prove their innocence?
 
"When did you stop beating your wife?" is an example of this kind of thinking. 
 
I don't know what the NFL should do, but if the public pressures them, I know what they will do.
 
I know this isn't college football, but the existence of actual, genuine public pressure is an encouraging sign for someone who remembers two-time US congressman Tom Osborne's reign at Nebraska.
 

IdiotKicker

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I think when dealing with situations where people make bad decisions, it is important for everyone, whether parents, bosses, corporations, or governments, to understand exactly what they are trying to accomplish in instilling discipline.
 
It's very easy in a situation like this to come out with the attitude of, "Player X did something horrible, he should be punished for it."  We see this fairly often in regards to situations where public figures makes mistakes.  There tends to be a large outcry for immediate action to simply "get rid of the problem".  This is the response that you typically see on twitter, facebook, and the like.
 
But let's look at what the point of instilling discipline is.  It's not to simply punish someone and take away what they have earned or positions they have achieved.  The real purpose of discipline is to allow the person to learn from the behavior that they previously exhibited, understand where they made their errors, and hopefully be able to proceed in the future without doing the same things again.  The end goal is to guide the person towards being someone who is able to produce more positive results for society, instead of negative results.
 
An important consideration to make with regards to this is that simply labeling someone in a situation like this tends to create a number of problems that prevent this from happening.  In both the Peterson and Rice situations, it's very easy to jump to calling either one of them a "monster", a "disgrace", or any number of different terms that have probably been thrown around.  But this doesn't actually create any positive momentum to create a better result from it.  Rather, the proper understanding is that these are people who made very bad decisions at one or more times in their lives, and we need to understand why that happened in order to change it.  Simply labeling the person makes those flaws into an inherent flaw in the person, and prevents us from working with them to resolve the situation in the future.
 
So in short, what I'm getting at is that we need to look at the purpose of why we discipline people.  AP needs to look at the purpose of why he disciplines his son.  Goodell needs to look at the purpose of why he disciplines his players.  Simply wanting someone gone because of mistakes they've made doesn't actually help to resolve the situation.  Discipline has to be handled on a case by case basis, because the nature of what is called for will vary based on the specifics of the case.
 
I'm not saying that Peterson should escape punishment in this situation or that the NFL should not have a disciplinary policy for these things.  But I think that the NFL, along with a number of other institutions, need to look at the reasons for discipline, as opposed to simply using the "label and remove" method that I described above.
 

crystalline

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I think that is a bit idealistic. Goodell disciplines players when that discipline makes the NFL more money. They skip discipline when skipping it makes them more money. I don't think there's any moral purpose in the NFLs discipline program, just an awareness of the marketing costs of non-discipline balanced by the player's value when they're on the field. Rice has little onfield value and the video was terrible: he's toast. Peterson has/had a lot of marketing and on field value so the Vikings are trying to get away with one game.

Peterson and the legal justice system can have other goals.
 

IdiotKicker

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crystalline said:
I think that is a bit idealistic. Goodell disciplines players when that discipline makes the NFL more money. They skip discipline when skipping it makes them more money. I don't think there's any moral purpose in the NFLs discipline program, just an awareness of the marketing costs of non-discipline balanced by the player's value when they're on the field. Rice has little onfield value and the video was terrible: he's toast. Peterson has/had a lot of marketing and on field value so the Vikings are trying to get away with one game.

Peterson and the legal justice system can have other goals.
It is in the NFL's best interest to create a discipline policy that remedies these situations so they can have theirbest players back on the field in the future with a decreased chance of recurrence. I know there isn't a huge moral purpose in the NFL's policy right now. I think it's pretty clear the lack of one is why we are having this conversation right now.
 

Marciano490

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Chuck Z said:
It is in the NFL's best interest to create a discipline policy that remedies these situations so they can have theirbest players back on the field in the future with a decreased chance of recurrence. I know there isn't a huge moral purpose in the NFL's policy right now. I think it's pretty clear the lack of one is why we are having this conversation right now.
I agree you identify one reason for disciplining people, but you can't forget deterrence and good ol' punishment as well.  One of the advantageous of the rush to call people "monsters," etc. is the effect it has on others doing or contemplating similar behavior.  There's a strong disincentive in public shaming. 
 

Fred in Lynn

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Chuck Z said:
I think when dealing with situations where people make bad decisions, it is important for everyone, whether parents, bosses, corporations, or governments, to understand exactly what they are trying to accomplish in instilling discipline.
 
It's very easy in a situation like this to come out with the attitude of, "Player X did something horrible, he should be punished for it."  We see this fairly often in regards to situations where public figures makes mistakes.  There tends to be a large outcry for immediate action to simply "get rid of the problem".  This is the response that you typically see on twitter, facebook, and the like.
 
But let's look at what the point of instilling discipline is.  It's not to simply punish someone and take away what they have earned or positions they have achieved.  The real purpose of discipline is to allow the person to learn from the behavior that they previously exhibited, understand where they made their errors, and hopefully be able to proceed in the future without doing the same things again.  The end goal is to guide the person towards being someone who is able to produce more positive results for society, instead of negative results.
 
An important consideration to make with regards to this is that simply labeling someone in a situation like this tends to create a number of problems that prevent this from happening.  In both the Peterson and Rice situations, it's very easy to jump to calling either one of them a "monster", a "disgrace", or any number of different terms that have probably been thrown around.  But this doesn't actually create any positive momentum to create a better result from it.  Rather, the proper understanding is that these are people who made very bad decisions at one or more times in their lives, and we need to understand why that happened in order to change it.  Simply labeling the person makes those flaws into an inherent flaw in the person, and prevents us from working with them to resolve the situation in the future.
 
So in short, what I'm getting at is that we need to look at the purpose of why we discipline people.  AP needs to look at the purpose of why he disciplines his son.  Goodell needs to look at the purpose of why he disciplines his players.  Simply wanting someone gone because of mistakes they've made doesn't actually help to resolve the situation.  Discipline has to be handled on a case by case basis, because the nature of what is called for will vary based on the specifics of the case.
 
I'm not saying that Peterson should escape punishment in this situation or that the NFL should not have a disciplinary policy for these things.  But I think that the NFL, along with a number of other institutions, need to look at the reasons for discipline, as opposed to simply using the "label and remove" method that I described above.
I think the NFL first needs to define what constitutes unacceptable behavior.
 

bsartist618

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Chuck Z said:
I think when dealing with situations where people make bad decisions, it is important for everyone, whether parents, bosses, corporations, or governments, to understand exactly what they are trying to accomplish in instilling discipline.
 
It's very easy in a situation like this to come out with the attitude of, "Player X did something horrible, he should be punished for it."  We see this fairly often in regards to situations where public figures makes mistakes.  There tends to be a large outcry for immediate action to simply "get rid of the problem".  This is the response that you typically see on twitter, facebook, and the like.
 
But let's look at what the point of instilling discipline is.  It's not to simply punish someone and take away what they have earned or positions they have achieved.  The real purpose of discipline is to allow the person to learn from the behavior that they previously exhibited, understand where they made their errors, and hopefully be able to proceed in the future without doing the same things again.  The end goal is to guide the person towards being someone who is able to produce more positive results for society, instead of negative results.
 
An important consideration to make with regards to this is that simply labeling someone in a situation like this tends to create a number of problems that prevent this from happening.  In both the Peterson and Rice situations, it's very easy to jump to calling either one of them a "monster", a "disgrace", or any number of different terms that have probably been thrown around.  But this doesn't actually create any positive momentum to create a better result from it.  Rather, the proper understanding is that these are people who made very bad decisions at one or more times in their lives, and we need to understand why that happened in order to change it.  Simply labeling the person makes those flaws into an inherent flaw in the person, and prevents us from working with them to resolve the situation in the future.
 
So in short, what I'm getting at is that we need to look at the purpose of why we discipline people.  AP needs to look at the purpose of why he disciplines his son.  Goodell needs to look at the purpose of why he disciplines his players.  Simply wanting someone gone because of mistakes they've made doesn't actually help to resolve the situation.  Discipline has to be handled on a case by case basis, because the nature of what is called for will vary based on the specifics of the case.
 
I'm not saying that Peterson should escape punishment in this situation or that the NFL should not have a disciplinary policy for these things.  But I think that the NFL, along with a number of other institutions, need to look at the reasons for discipline, as opposed to simply using the "label and remove" method that I described above.
 
This is essentially what I was talking to my girlfriend about yesterday and I thought about writing a post saying as much but decided against it as the moral outrage in this thread didn't give me confidence that there was room for a somewhat counter opinion.  Besides, your post was much more eloquent than I could have put it.
 
I'll add that Peterson is always going to be his son's father and Ray and Janay Rice are likely to stay together and raise a family.  These families for better or worse rely on the player as father/husband, but also provider.  Long term suspensions and permanent bans intended to show zero tolerance, will likely come at the detriment to the other family members who have been victimized already.
 
Both incidents (and others previously mentioned) are obviously unacceptable and our justice system will hopefully deal with them appropriately, but the NFL response should be to set goals for an outcome and provide a "punishment" which works towards those goals rather than just trying to find the correct number of suspension games to show an adequate level of disapproval for the public's liking.  In AP's case before returning to play, perhaps the league should be forcing him to complete parenting education, counseling for his son, donations to child abuse charities and the like.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Is anyone advocating for a lifetime or permanent ban for any of these guys?  I don't know that anyone has done that in this thread, at least.
 
Marciano said it up thread but deterrence is a big part of why you punish people too, letting your other employees know that there are consequences for acting like jackasses.  Organizations can (and should) stand for something.  Having policies and principles without holding people accountable to those things is useless.  If the NFL (or the individual teams) want to stand for the principle that any kind of domestic violence is wrong, then you have to hold players accountable, and in some cases (like in Peterson's instance where he is not even denying the incident), the answer cannot be that we'll continue to play the guy until he's found guilty of a crime. Although it also doesn't have to be an indefinite and lifetime ban. 
 
Granted the NFL isn't exactly "standing" for anything except in the sense that it is being forced to act because of the threat of sponsors walking, but that's OK.  It has to start somewhere.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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soxfan121 said:
 
Should the NFL look into a psychic who can help divine the status of the other 1991 who haven't been arrested? Or assume them all guilty until they can prove their innocence?
 
"When did you stop beating your wife?" is an example of this kind of thinking. 
 
You're missing the point.  There are other players who are accused of things but haven't been arrested.  Should the NFL have looked further into the Kaepernick allegations - both the sexual assault as well as presence of drugs?  Suggs was never arrested - the allegations were filed as a part of an application for a protective order.
 
And if the NFL has to start independently investigating every allegation of domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault, should they for other crimes?  The NFL I'm sure never looked into Hernandez before it was too late; maybe they should have.  What about allegations of drug use.
 
I'm not saying I have an answer; I just think it's really difficult.  I think if you ask most judges who work at the local level, they will tell you that DV and abuse cases are the hardest to deal with.  The stakes can be extremely high; the parties often have conflicting testimony; there is often little outside evidence to support one side or another and even when there might be pictures or some other evidence, the victim often times flips to support the defendant.
 

soxhop411

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Soo.....
 

Adrian Peterson's HS coach admits using a paddle for punishment
 
Amidst all the Adrian Peterson news today came this report that Peterson’s high school coach used to beat the running back with an 18-inch wooden paddle as part of a “tough love” regime. 
 
The article comes from MailOnline, which reported that Booker Bowie would give Peterson up to three lashes with a paddle he kept in his office. Peterson attended Palestine High School in Texas, and according to this article, Bowie was head football coach and athletic director before he retired in 2009. 
From the article at MailOnline:
Speaking from his home in Tyler, Texas, Bowie explained that he used to hit his students if they stepped out of line. He said that he talked to his students before he hit them and then explained afterwards why he did what he did.
He told MailOnline: 'It wasn't my intention to abuse the kids, the kids loved me for it. I wanted them to do right. They said: "Coach, thank you
 
http://www.coachad.com/pages/Breaking-News---Adrian-Petersons-HS-coach-admits-using-a-paddle-for-punishment.php
 

HomeRunBaker

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JohntheBaptist said:
17 years old getting spanked by a football coach? WTF? Is it just me or is that an extremely odd image/ concept?
It's old school stuff which goes back to my point of many southern states being a generation or two behind. This is far from an isolated incident this I'm certain. I'm expecting more people to come out and defend their actions as this is how they were taught to discipline especially in the south.

I texted my older brother just now asking him if any of his coaches did any of this stuff. He laughed and said, "Oh yeah we had this one coach at Hope (RI) who had "bull in the middle" when a guy would screw up the player would be in the middle of a circle and multiple players would take free shots at him until the coach blew the whistle. One kid broke his ankle and the coach waved the trainer off and made him walk/hop back to the locker room and go home on the bus."
 

HomeRunBaker

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soxfan121 said:
 
Should the NFL look into a psychic who can help divine the status of the other 1991 who haven't been arrested? Or assume them all guilty until they can prove their innocence?
 
"When did you stop beating your wife?" is an example of this kind of thinking. 
Should we be naive to think that it's only these 191? If that's the case animals like Marvin Harrison would still have the perception of a squeaky clean image as would hundreds of others who played this game.

edit: Ooooops here we go. Many more to come I'm sure. Once sponsors begin bailing the owners will be putting the heat on Goodell. I laughed at those who thought Goodell wouldn't survive this as the owners care only about one thing......but now that thi$ one thing is being threatened Roger could be finished.

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/85676-gloria-allred-calls-presser-to-detail-another-nfl-abuse-case/#entry5640996
 

DJnVa

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soxhop411 said:
 
 
They did NOT love you for it you fucking tool. They may have said something that your mind twisted into that because they wanted to play football or they are now justifying the fact they do something like that to their kid.
 
"My parents used a switch on me and I grew up fine." No you didn't. You grew up into someone that thinks that level of violence visited upon a kid is okay. You are not fine.
 

Myt1

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Chuck Z said:
It is in the NFL's best interest to create a discipline policy that remedies these situations so they can have theirbest players back on the field in the future with a decreased chance of recurrence. I know there isn't a huge moral purpose in the NFL's policy right now. I think it's pretty clear the lack of one is why we are having this conversation right now.
We punish people for any number of reasons and altering their behavior is just one of them, and one that we tend to be pretty lousy at. I'm wondering how, exactly, you think the NFL could "remedy" these situations.
 

ALiveH

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if the NFL could magically suspend every player who's ever committed an act in their private life that would outrage the public, the league will end up with the talent level of Harvard's or MIT's football team.
 

DJnVa

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We all know that. That doesn't mean you don't act when things happen.
 

JohntheBaptist

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HomeRunBaker said:
It's old school stuff which goes back to my point of many southern states being a generation or two behind. This is far from an isolated incident this I'm certain. I'm expecting more people to come out and defend their actions as this is how they were taught to discipline especially in the south.

I texted my older brother just now asking him if any of his coaches did any of this stuff. He laughed and said, "Oh yeah we had this one coach at Hope (RI) who had "bull in the middle" when a guy would screw up the player would be in the middle of a circle and multiple players would take free shots at him until the coach blew the whistle. One kid broke his ankle and the coach waved the trainer off and made him walk/hop back to the locker room and go home on the bus."
 
I'm familiar with old school stuff and wouldn't bat an eye (though not condone) hearing about when a coach might spank, say, an 11 year old. The example you cite from your brother here is getting your team to self-police--the coach isn't doing anything himself. The way AP's former coach portrayed it, he was alone in his office with a high school aged kid and chose to discipline him by spanking him with a plank of wood. Again, maybe just me, but that seems really, really strange and just a bit different than what you're describing.
 

HomeRunBaker

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JohntheBaptist said:
 
I'm familiar with old school stuff and wouldn't bat an eye (though not condone) hearing about when a coach might spank, say, an 11 year old. The example you cite from your brother here is getting your team to self-police--the coach isn't doing anything himself. The way AP's former coach portrayed it, he was alone in his office with a high school aged kid and chose to discipline him by spanking him with a plank of wood. Again, maybe just me, but that seems really, really strange and just a bit different than what you're describing.
Well I'll go back to my own 3rd grade experience in the principals office when he left a welt across my face. This was the 70's in the north where I'm guessing (and yes I am only guessing) we were the early adopters to combat corporal punishment.......I'm confident this stuff was going on recently or currently in the south.

Is it disturbing in 2014.....yes. Is it surprising.....it shoudln't be.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Sep 9, 2008
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Chuck, very excellent post.  You've put your finger on something that I don't think is being talked about enough.
 
 
Marciano490 said:
I agree you identify one reason for disciplining people, but you can't forget deterrence and good ol' punishment as well.  One of the advantageous of the rush to call people "monsters," etc. is the effect it has on others doing or contemplating similar behavior.  There's a strong disincentive in public shaming. 
 
There has been, almost literally, nobody making the deterrence point either.  The discourse all about what should happen to Ray Rice or Adrian Peterson, not based on how it will affect others but whether they got punished enough.  The problem with the NFL's response to Rice, in particular, is that merely attempting to hurt a guy who does a bad thing is not really what the NFL should be about.  But that's pretty much the only way that the entire issue is discussed in public -- it disintegrates into a blood lust for "justice" for the offender like this is some kind of revenge movie or something.  That's the job for the criminal justice system.  But the NFL is largely taking the bait here, trying to appeal to this blood lust in the way they address these situations, viewing their job as trying to appease the public (and I guess sponsors) by punishing the offender and now hand wringing about whether they goofed because the punishment did not fit the crime properly.  In my view, this is both misguided and also misplaced -- misplaced in the sense that the NFL is actually missing both the point and an opportunity.
 
The NFL does have a role to play in disciplining players who do these things, but they need to recognize that part of that role is deterrence, both personal (that is for the offender himself) and general (that is, for the rest of the league).  In some scandals, Goodell talks a good game with respect to deterrence, but that language has been noticeably absent in the Rice/Peterson debate and situation.  For example, with DUI, they talk a great game and they actually do seem interested in a program and punishment protocol that will make players think twice before deciding not to call a cab.  The irony is that domestic violence actually (though I'm not a professional) seems somewhat amenable to deterrence and education.  I don't think deterrence has a chance to work too much at the most pernicious domestic violence level -- that is, the level of control and psychological abuse that creates the predicate for physical violence -- but at least it has the potential to work on the physical level.  Properly administered and with the right messages attached, the NFL has a real opportunity to help create a world where it's players (and, gasp, maybe even the shithead who drinks too much on Sunday and hits his wife when his team loses) at least think for a moment while their hands are raised before they strike.  They have completely failed in this regard, in my view, but it seems that nobody wants to make this point, because all the discussion is about whether they were hard enough on Ray Rice.  To be sure, there is overlap in the discussions -- the harsher the punishment, hopefully the more it deters.  But the deterrence point simply has not been part of the public discussion.
 
Now, the good news here is that the shaming of Rice and to a lesser extent Peterson is doing some of that work -- and the reality is that there likely will be some deterrence here.  But the point is that's not because of the NFL.  It's in spite of it, and because of TMZ. 
 

JohntheBaptist

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Jul 13, 2005
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JohntheBaptist said:
 
I'm familiar with old school stuff and wouldn't bat an eye (though not condone) hearing about when a coach might spank, say, an 11 year old. The example you cite from your brother here is getting your team to self-police--the coach isn't doing anything himself. The way AP's former coach portrayed it, he was alone in his office with a high school aged kid and chose to discipline him by spanking him with a plank of wood. Again, maybe just me, but that seems really, really strange and just a bit different than what you're describing.
 
 
HomeRunBaker said:
Well I'll go back to my own 3rd grade experience in the principals office when he left a welt across my face. This was the 70's in the north where I'm guessing (and yes I am only guessing) we were the early adopters to combat corporal punishment.......I'm confident this stuff was going on recently or currently in the south.

Is it disturbing in 2014.....yes. Is it surprising.....it shoudln't be.
 
Seriously? Do you read stuff before you respond to it?
 
It isn't a huge deal either way, but I wasn't registering surprise that kids got hit at school back in the day. I wasn't registering surprise that kids get hit at all--that's not news to anyone. Just never heard of a football coach pulling aside a 16/ 17 year old kid and spanking him with a paddle when he misbehaved. Seems extra strange and not nearly age-appropriate even if you condoned corporal punishment.
 
Third time's a charm?
 

steveluck7

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May 10, 2007
3,994
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DrewDawg said:
 
 
 
 
"My parents used a switch on me and I grew up fine." No you didn't. You grew up into someone that thinks that level of violence visited upon a kid is okay. You are not fine.
This is what i keep thinking too. 
Bert Breer on with Gresh and Zo today added another wrinkle to the"it's how i was raised" argument from AP... He was "disciplined" by his dad, the same dad who'd spend 8 years in prison. You're taking parenting cues from THAT guy?
 

dcmissle

Deflatigator
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Aug 4, 2005
28,269
I was instructed by nuns, one of which routinely separated a paddle from the attached red ball and elastic and paddled our heads. That would, I suppose, explain some posting.

Left unsaid: And before you ladies leave my island, you will all be able to do the same thing.
 

soxfan121

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23,043
HomeRunBaker said:
Should we be naive to think that it's only these 191? If that's the case animals like Marvin Harrison would still have the perception of a squeaky clean image as would hundreds of others who played this game.
 
1. The number is 1991 - subtraction. I'm sure this is just a typo, though, so just clarifying. 
 
2. This is an inflammatory word choice that carries with it lots of ugly, racist connotations. Unless that's your intent, I'd suggest something different next time. 
 

Marciano490

Urological Expert
SoSH Member
Nov 4, 2007
62,312
soxfan121 said:
 
1. The number is 1991 - subtraction. I'm sure this is just a typo, though, so just clarifying. 
 
2. This is an inflammatory word choice that carries with it lots of ugly, racist connotations. Unless that's your intent, I'd suggest something different next time. 
 
I think he just meant Colts.
 

IdiotKicker

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Nov 21, 2005
10,785
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Myt1 said:
We punish people for any number of reasons and altering their behavior is just one of them, and one that we tend to be pretty lousy at. I'm wondering how, exactly, you think the NFL could "remedy" these situations.
 
Let's look at the incentives that are currently in place with the league right now.  The league has taken the approach that they will not mete out any discipline until a final ruling has been reached by a judge, at which point Goodell will rule on discipline.  Unfortunately, this encourages teams to draft players and keep who may be character risks, as they will retain the services of the player throughout the investigation, and may only lose their services in the event of a conviction, at which point the player may be released.  There is no real rule in place to prevent this from happening now.
 
In my opinion, the major thing that has to be done is remove the incentive for NFL teams to engage with players who may be discipline problems.  With the way the CBA is currently drafted, NFL teams can hide behind "due process" much like the Vikings and Panthers attempted to do and still try to get their guys on the field.  The option I would suggest in fixing this aspect of the problem is that any player who is charged with a violent crime be suspended with pay, effective immediately, for the length of the investigation.  This is much the situation that occurs in any other workplace.  Being suspended with pay is very common for people who are involved in ongoing investigations.  It should be in the NFL as well.
 
By moving to this incentive system, it discourages bringing on players who are character risks unless you feel that you have means within your team to help prevent those risks from occurring again.  I think that burden falls to the individual team, rather than the NFL, to determine whether they want to allocate the funds for counseling and other programs for their own players if they want to try to bring on high-risk players.
 
I do not think the NFL should have additional suspensions once a verdict is reached in a trial.  If a player has to serve time for a crime, he will miss games.  If he is able to reach a deal with a judge to avoid time, he has already been suspended through the proceedings, and teams can take risks on those players as needed.  But I do not believe that additional punishment should be given out at this point, as the criminal justice system has served its purpose.
 
That would be my preferred system.  I'm sure there are holes that I haven't thought of (which I'm interested in hearing you point out), but I believe it creates the right incentive system for players and teams to engage in the right behavior and seek to improve it.