Dallas Cowboys: NFL hypocrisy reaches an all-time high

Jimmy Haslam has drawn some negative attention in recent weeks and it isn’t because of the Cleveland Browns. Should the NFL act on the situation?

The NFL is once again facing a public relations crisis as Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has drawn some negative attention in recent weeks. Haslam is the CEO of Pilot Flying J and multiple executives with the company are on trial, leading to questions about the companies business practices.

The primary topic in these court proceedings involves an alleged rebate scandal, but that’s not even the worst of it. Apparently former Pilot Flying J President Mark Hazelwood mad racist and divisive comments about the people of Cleveland and the Browns organization.

This was discovered after a secret recording had been introduced in court. If that tape were to ever be released the PR scandal would be immediate. In 2013 and 2014 the FBI and IRS raided the companies headquarters, which typically shows that the government believes you have done something severely wrong.

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So how does the NFL feel about all of this? A league spokesman stated

“No prosecuting authority has found reason to bring charges against Mr. Haslam…So that’s where we leave it”.

Unbelievable.

From a league that has seemingly made a habit out of punishing those just suspected to have done wrong, they decide to leave the owners alone. It shows the lack of power the NFL disciplinary committee truly has over the men who really run the league.

If any of this stuff happened to a player the NFL would immediately come out with a statement showing that they would look into the matter. Dallas Cowboys star running back, Ezekiel Elliott was not even arrested or placed under suspicion for any wrongdoing and still, the NFL hammers him for six games, something that Jerry Jones is absolutely livid about.

The disciplinary side of the NFL has always been off, from giving Ray Rice a two-game suspension, to giving Josh Brown a single game suspension, before “additional investigations” (public outcry) led to him being ousted from the league entirely.

That is the problem here, the NFL only reacts to things it sees as bad for business, not necessarily what is right morally. The NFL should not even be in a place to judge their players or anyone else for that matter as scandals would have plagued the league for years if social media existed in the 80’s and 90’s.

The NFL has made their stance clear, an owners behavior or business practices cannot be held to the same level of scrutiny as the players they punish, and that is wrong. Even recently with Jerry Jones, the NFL has had some harsh words for the owner of America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys.

The league is so afraid that questioning or revisiting any of the leagues bungled disciplinary decisions is an action that has to be silenced. Jones was even threatened with possible penalties after speaking out against the NFL’s disciplinary system for engaging in “conduct detrimental to the league”, how can you argue that scamming people on your free time is not “conduct detrimental to the league” is beyond me.

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The NFL is flawed in many ways, however, the product is still strong. The league itself is seeing viewers leave because of their constant overreactions and unfair penalties. No team is more watched than the Dallas Cowboys, and suspending their biggest star for a crime he was not even accused/convicted of by a court of law was a major injustice and puts an asterisk on the NFL season as a whole.