Football. The American pastime. What families gather to watch every Sunday in the fall. What every high schooler’s Friday night revolves around, but has anyone dared to look deeper than what’s plastered on the TV every Sunday?
USA Today has an ongoing list of the arrests of NFL players. The list started in the year 2000 and now contains more than 700 reported arrests and citations of NFL players. Capital News Service Maryland compiled data based on arrest records of NFL players and found that the leading charge is substance abuse, following that is assault, domestic violence, disorderly conduct, any arrest related to weapons, robbery, sex-offenses, and so on. The Minnesota Vikings lead in the most arrests per season averaging a whopping 44 a season while the whole NFL averages 22 a season yearly.
Though substance abuse leads in the arrests for NFL players, actually surpassing the rest of the American population by 12.04 percent according to CNS Maryland, NFL players are still known mostly for abnormally high occurrences of domestic violence charges. This is because of large cases that resulted in the player being released from their team. One such case is Hassen Haskins, a running back for Tennessee, who allegedly strangled and assaulted a woman he was dating. He was arrested on June 29, the case is still unresolved. Many fans point to football’s aggressive nature as reasoning for violence bleeding into players’ personal lives, but more and more critics are suspecting the idolization of players and high stakes of the game to play a role in the NFL’s high arrest rates.
The NFL has instituted a code of ethics for the players, with fines reaching up to $11,000 per offense and game suspensions based on their arrest. For domestic violence cases, the first offense is a 6-game suspension without pay for those games the second is a lifetime suspension.
Still, arrests seem to be a problem for the NFL. Is this due to the violent nature of the sport? The fame and fortune mixed with the young age of players? Or have the head injuries caught up to players?
Young players who are being introduced into the NFL can be easily misled by bad influences. It’s important to start teaching players at a young age that their actions have consequences and can cost their life or someone else’s.
