NFL Players Association Seeks Advice From Players
By Michael Williams (3/8/2007)
This football season has not been the best for the NFL taking into consideration what has been happening off the field, specially with shooting of Darrent Williams on New Year’s Day and the innumerable arrests of the Cincinnati Bengals players.
NFL Players Association has taken note of these incidents and has finally decided that it about time something should be done. So, they are inviting a few top stars of NFL to give their opinion on what challenges a player faces off the field and what should be done so that the player can handle those challenges.
Union president Troy Vincent said that he was very concerned with what he was seeing off the field and that he held each and every player responsible for their actions and deeds. He said that the need of the hour was to get to know from the players themselves what was happening and what course should be taken.
As per the current NFL conduct policy, when a player is convicted the first time, the commissioner decides the penalty and the second conviction automatically suspends the player though the length of the suspension varies depending on the conviction.
Tank Johnson, Chicago’s defensive tackle, had to get special permission from the court to leave Illinois so that he could play in the Super Bowl. Johnson is awaiting a trial on the charges of gun possession. In the last nine months, nine Cincinnati players have been arrested for different charges like drunken driving, resisting arrest and spouse battery. Then there is Chris Henry who was jailed for two days after he pleaded guilty for allowing minors to drink in the hotel room he had rented.
All these incidents are weighing heavily on NFL and its image. NFL is trying very hard to redeem its image specially when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. The league now has a new policy in place which will ensure players have more extensive testing for performance enhancing drugs and they have added the blood-boosting substance EPO to the list of banned substances.
NFL Players Association is also in the process of studying how penalties and suspensions affect incentives, bonuses and Pro Bowl trips. This decision was taken after Shawne Merriman was voted to All Pro in spite of testing positive for steroids. Many players in the league felt that Merriman should not have been eligible for awards after testing positive. |