The Draw Play

Ugh. Looks like we got another Ray Rice situation on our hands. Just with Josh Brown, noted scumbag kicker.

To recap
-Josh Brown suspended for breaking personal conduct policy, no one knows why
-It’s revealed to be for an incident of domestic violence, hooray
-More info is leaked about the marriage, both parties come across as troubled, there is outrage but not too much, probably because he’s a kicker who isn’t a star, & there was no video.
-Giants sign Fat Randy for game 1
-Brown returns to team with little notice, plays football, kicks things, nobody really talks about him
-Suddenly more info on Brown drops, painting him as far worse
-Giants and Mara double down defending him, say they didn’t have all the info
-Reports drop that the NFL/Giants certainly had access to the info if they wanted it, and knew about the “pro bowl incident” which involved Brown’s family being put in a different hotel in secret by NFL security to protect them
-Players and McAdoo come out in “support” of Brown, also mention anger at anthem protests, not giving anyone a positive impression of their priorities
-NFL puts Brown on exemption list for further “investigation”, Brown likely done with football
-Giants grab kicker Robbie Gould for London tomorrow
-Mara and McAdoo refuse to truly condemn Brown even after all this

The only thing that’s really changed since the first news broke is how much the public now knows. It’s clear that the NFL was either sweeping Brown’s situation under the rug OR the NFL is so incompetent at investigating that they really didn’t know about all this and basically just ignored it and threw a casual suspension at Brown. Both possibilities are pretty heinous for a league that had the worst year of PR ever seen after a different domestic violence incident just two seasons ago. It’s despicable and probably the hardest it’s ever been for me to personally support the team after how they’ve handled this. Mara has officially entered the pantheon of “Mustache twirling villain owner” along with lofty company as Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, Kroenke, Spanos, Brown, and York. No Giants fan can ever again claim a moral high ground when it comes to the franchise ownership.  His salary cap collusion thing referenced in the comic above was bad, but this is so much worse.

The sad thing is none of this had any reason to happen. There was no reason whatsoever to keep Brown after the news broke. Josh Brown is a 37 year old average at best kicker. The suspension should have meant instant roster cut. You can find kickers pretty easily, I mean they grabbed Fat Randy pretty easy for the 1 game. They already grabbed Gould for presumably the rest of the season. Brown is an old fart kicker who isn’t anything special. There was no reason to keep him. None. He should have been toast the instant this broke, especially for a team that supposedly doesn’t put up with this stuff. Especially for a team that publicly questioned Beckham’s “antics”. At least the only thing Beckham hits is a net, and now those two are in love. I guess he also hit Josh Norman, but the league is fine with that because Josh Norman did a bow and arrow celebration once, which is basically like killing children to the NFL.

What bothers me the most in all this is that Brown never should have only gotten 1 game. When Ray Rice happened, the NFL was taken to task for not having a good, consistent punishment policy for domestic abusers. Goodell released a statement in the aftermath saying that domestic violence now causes “automatic 6 game suspension” for first offense, and “indefinite suspension” for second. Then, they completely ignored this policy, and gave Josh Brown 1 game, for reasons that still haven’t been explained. Can the NFL really be this goddamn stupid? This negligent? This ridiculous to break or forget their own policy 2 years later and assume no one would notice? If Brown got the 6 game suspension in the first place, the Giants probably would have cut him and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead the NFL (Which is in some ways basically run by Mara, who leads the Owners, who puppet Goodell, making me wonder if Mara basically gave Brown 1 game to protect his asset) did a stupid. Again. If Mara was behind the 1 game suspension, it’s biting him in the ass real hard right now. But there isn’t much that can be done, because Mara kind of runs the league, and if he still thinks this way no wonder the NFL might be starting to decline.

McAdoo is getting a lot of hate in the press, probably more than Mara, but honestly he just strikes me as a puppet. McAdoo doesn’t appear to have much personality or agency of his own. Mara is the problem. I’m also not too bothered by the players “supporting” Brown. They aren’t going to openly trash their teammate publicly, especially not when the guy who owns the paychecks might be the problem. Besides, as much as we make everything black and white, Josh Brown might be a like-able teammate that they didn’t know had such a troubled side. It’s tough when you find out a friend has such problems like that. His teammates are in a morally tougher spot than any of us looking in from the outside.

I hope Brown gets help. He’s clearly got some problems that just removing him from the NFL won’t fix. He needs help. Hopefully when the Giants say they are “supporting” him, that’s the way they mean, and the media is just playing it up because that’s what the media does when it can. I also hope Brown never sees a football field again, and Mara gets roasted to a crisp and changes some things for the better.

Haha who am I kidding, can’t wait to see who gets fined for being happy they scored a touchdown this week.