Don't really care about this mess either way but glad to see that he is not going to resign and give in to the angry mob and the phony outrage.
I've gotten a little sick of the medias constant disdain for the NFL for "ignoring the problem". Not that I don't think that is the case because it certainly is, but the sports media world didn't exactly sound the alam (or even really care) until the Ray Rice 2-game suspension. Even then, they spent much of the time trying to compare the appropriateness of the suspension relative to other offenses than they did the issue of DV.
I saw Skip Bayless talking about how there have been 50 or so incidents where players were charged (not convicted, just charged) since Goodell's first year and nothing happened. Supposedly the president of NOW dropped this number on him and the way he talked about it you wouldn't even know the guy makes a living reporting sports news. Like he had no idea as to the extent of the issue.
Newsflash, Skip. You are a reporter, and the company that employs you is the biggest sports reporting network in the world. They actually call themselves just that.
Was there no point along the way from 2006 until now when you or anyone else at ESPN said, "hey, there sure is a lot of domestic violence in the NFL"? Florio gets off on tracking arrests so the information is out there. All ESPN had to do is report what was readily available so any lack of insight on the scale of the problem is a result of their own laziness or disinterest.
I think Steven A. Smith has been honest about the issue. Everyone ignored the issue from the league to the media. He included society but I wouldn't agree with that as much. Some no doubt but not on the level of sports media and the NFL. You figure 6 cases per year, I'd bet a lot more people would be alarmed by that number than there are self-identified advocates to stop DV. You don't have to be in a default ignore mode if you aren't an active advocate, and I'd bet 6 encounters a year for most people would raise some concern.
The league flat out ignored it and it spans back a ways, years before Goidell. I believe the media just fell asleep at the wheel and viewed these stories as isolated unfortunate events, and not a league problem. Sort of a....
We'll report them as they come across the wire, but we have limited time and Lebron is about to announce through Twitter which fast food restaurant he's going to for dinner.
I also think the media's uproar is pretty telling regarding their level of interest in the topic prior to the recent events. It seems that in their rush to condemn and criticize the initial 2 game suspension the media forgot that they never thought twice about all the guys who didn't get punished at all. At the very least they didn't show the same level of conviction they are now. If 2 games is inappropriate, why have 50 players (or just the ones they knew of) since 2006 gone unpunished without the media ever starting a firestorm over an issue that they are unanimously in an uproar over right now?
Did the media all of a sudden decide that punishments for DV should actually involve some sort of punishment and that it should be more than 2 games, starting with Rice? Not likely.
To be fair the media has reported on the issue at times. I will say it's never been like this. There seems to be some acknowledgement here and there. I found an article from 2000 calling attention to it and they had quotes from a player, a coach (Jimmy, actually), and an owner who all said the policies they had in place where worthless and lacked punishment. The league appears to have just sat on their hands.