Another NFL player arrested as league’s nightmare week continues

[Sam Fisher]

Commissioner Roger Goodell's tough player conduct policy was supposed to stop NFL players from getting in trouble ... right?

Another day, another arrest for the NFL. This time it's Colts safety Joe Lefeged, who the Indianapolis Star said was chased down by police and will be arraigned on multiple gun-related offenses.

Somewhere, Goodell and the rest of the NFL is praying this nightmare week ends. And they'll probably be quite happy when the offseason as a whole is finished.

This week has included Aaron Hernandez getting charged with murder, Ausar Walcott being charged with attempted murder and Josh Brent failing a second drug test while out on bond on an intoxicated manslaughter charge. Now comes the Indianapolis Star news that Lefeged and a friend were driving in Washington, D.C., and when police attempted to pull over their car and a chase ensued. The men were arrested after the chase and a handgun was found in the car.

Lefeged and Timothy Wilson will be arraigned on charges of carrying a firearm without license, unregistered firearm, unregistered ammunition and presence of a firearm in a motor vehicle, the Star said.

Lefeged is entering his third season with the Colts, and last year he played in all 16 games, starting four. He also started a playoff loss to Baltimore.

Business Insider reported earlier this week that there have been 27 known instances of NFL players being arrested since the Super Bowl.

The story was outdated almost immediately. Brent and Lefeged are the 28th and 29th known NFL player arrests this offseason.



http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-s...eague-nightmare-week-continues-165603104.html

 

[D-rock]

There's probably around 1,700 players in the NFL from year to year. If you took a random sampling of that many people from most walks of life I'm sure there would be some that would have trouble with the law. I'd go as far as to say that if you took the 1,700 most prominent posters on this messageboard, that a good handful of us would be in legal trouble at any one time, some of them even for serious crimes. Add to that what would happen if you gave each of the people on here about a 2.3 million dollar a year average salary to enable a lot of them to do whatever they wanted and it might even be worse.

 

[Jack Davenport]

There's probably around 1,700 players in the NFL from year to year. If you took a random sampling of that many people from most walks of life I'm sure there would be some that would have trouble with the law. I'd go as far as to say that if you took the 1,700 most prominent posters on this messageboard, that a good handful of us would be in legal trouble at any one time, some of them even for serious crimes. Add to that what would happen if you gave each of the people on here about a 2.3 million dollar a year average salary to enable a lot of them to do whatever they wanted and it might even be worse.

Make sure the sampling of the people from most walks of life make at least 285,000 a year and then we will compare notes

 

[lurkingdirk]

 

[D-rock]

Make sure the sampling of the people from most walks of life make at least 285,000 a year and then we will compare notes

Do those people that you want to compare them to and make that come upon that money suddenly? I would suspect that before they get to the NFL most of the players come from socioeconomic backgrounds that are much closer to where an average person is, if not often much below that, than to somebody that makes just under $ 300,000 a year or comes from a family that makes that much.

It's easier for somebody not to get involved with crime and have their environment adversely effect them when most of their life they have been relatively sheltered and protected by the worst that life can throw at most people.

I think most groups of people if they just had large sums of money thrown at them suddenly would have rates of crimes like this raise, even if smaller crimes were lessened because they no longer have need of committing them.

If any argument is to be made that NFL players are different to most people out there I would say it has more to do with the fact that once their talent and skill became obvious that they were able to feel entitled to get away with more from those around them whether it’s teachers fudging a test score so they can play, colleges inventing joke classes so they can go to them, people giving them money, jewelry, cars, other valuables discreetly, or being able to go to the best clubs and parties, etc… Basically they feel entitled and feel they can get away with a lot of things, because quite frankly, for a lot of them, from the point in their lives where their potential became known, that has indeed been the case.

Still I think for most people out there if you took thousands of them there is inevitably going to be a handful of people that are going to commit crimes just from the sheer probability of there being that many people.

 

[tudor24]

Make sure the sampling of the people from most walks of life make at least 285,000 a year and then we will compare notes

In most professions in order to make that much money a person will have had to master being a narcissistic and terrible person while doing so in a quiet and almost Machiavellian manner. It doesn't pay to be a violent amoral idiot in those professions. So they won't be doing much violent murder, rape, drug dealing etc. Being an outlaw doesn't pay when trying to make money in most professions.

College and pro football are where we encourage individuals to inhabit a violent, gladiatorial mentality towards playing a game that has always been popular due to it's being a not so subtle metaphor for armed conflict between nations. The average football player isn't exactly a picture of emotional self discipline and control They have been conditioned since they were first discovered to be "talented" (read highly athletic and for some reason willing to damage themselves at the instruction of narcissistic self important coaches) to engage in violence with little or no thought to the consequences. "Don't think!!! JUST KNOCK HIM ON HIS ASS!!

It isn't an intellectual stretch to imagine that while a great many will eventually figure out the actual world and a way to function within it, there will be a decent amount of very ugly ugly stuff happening on the periphery. It is the nature of a sport that is for all intents and purposes ugly, violent and not all that admirable.

I love sports and as a kid I loved football. As an adult if Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Pro Golf, Formula One etc went away one day I would be duly upset. But honestly, if football disappeared never to be played again, I am fairly sure I wouldn't miss it for a minute.

 

[Jack Davenport]

Do those people that you want to compare them to and make that come upon that money suddenly? I would suspect that before they get to the NFL most of the players come from socioeconomic backgrounds that are much closer to where an average person is, if not often much below that, than to somebody that makes just under $ 300,000 a year or comes from a family that makes that much.

It's easier for somebody not to get involved with crime and have their environment adversely effect them when most of their life they have been relatively sheltered and protected by the worst that life can throw at most people.

I think most groups of people if they just had large sums of money thrown at them suddenly would have rates of crimes like this raise, even if smaller crimes were lessened because they no longer have need of committing them.

If any argument is to be made that NFL players are different to most people out there I would say it has more to do with the fact that once their talent and skill became obvious that they were able to feel entitled to get away with more from those around them whether it’s teachers fudging a test score so they can play, colleges inventing joke classes so they can go to them, people giving them money, jewelry, cars, other valuables discreetly, or being able to go to the best clubs and parties, etc… Basically they feel entitled and feel they can get away with a lot of things, because quite frankly, for a lot of them, from the point in their lives where their potential became known, that has indeed been the case.

Still I think for most people out there if you took thousands of them there is inevitably going to be a handful of people that are going to commit crimes just from the sheer probability of there being that many people.

I don't think it is as suddenly as you want to paint it for professional athletes. They know their talent by the time they are sophomores in high school and most start behaving in such a manner that will allow them to have a college career also. . A better comparison for suddenly coming to money would be lottery winners.

 

[Sam Fisher]

There's probably around 1,700 players in the NFL from year to year. If you took a random sampling of that many people from most walks of life I'm sure there would be some that would have trouble with the law. I'd go as far as to say that if you took the 1,700 most prominent posters on this messageboard, that a good handful of us would be in legal trouble at any one time, some of them even for serious crimes. Add to that what would happen if you gave each of the people on here about a 2.3 million dollar a year average salary to enable a lot of them to do whatever they wanted and it might even be worse.

Seems to me those in the NFL who end up on the wrong side of the law, tend to be players of color. At least in the past ten years. I could be wrong.

 

[Jack Davenport]

Hernandez is Hispanic.

 

[Sam Fisher]

Hernandez is Hispanic.

Yes. See tables below.







Story here: Criminal Violence of NFL Players Compared to the General Population.

http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/123.nflviol.pdf

 

[Jack Davenport]

Sammy

I know what you are getting at.. but you will never get some to admit it.

 

[Sam Fisher]

Sammy

I know what you are getting at.. but you will never get some to admit it.

I know, and thanks. Just showing the stats in order to substantiate my previous post.

Seems to me those in the NFL who end up on the wrong side of the law, tend to be players of color. At least in the past ten years. I could be wrong.