As mentioned in this space yesterday, Saints head coach Sean Payton was implicated in a lawsuit accusing New Orleans of covering up vicodin theft and abuse in their locker room. Though said story only made the major newspapers and blogs yesterday, Sports On My Mind’s D.K. Wilson says the accusations of former FBI agent/Saints security head Geoffrey Santini have been floating around for ages. However, Wilson argues that instead of outrage over Payton in print and on sports yack radio, “we get Santonio Holmes,” he of the alleged inability to follow sky-waitress instructions.
That some jerk stewardess tripped out because a Black man had the nerve to give her the œwhat for over nothing, and because of a new post- 9/11 attitude, in-flight airline help thinks they run something other than their mouths, Santonio Holmes is on the lips of too may people, while Sean Payton hides behind the NFL shield.
So is Holmes in trouble? Because a White NFL player and a White NFL head coach are the only people making headlines this offseason, he sure is. And he had better watch his step because it seems most other Black NFL players are hyper-aware of how their offseason speeding tickets, their reaction to some club patron talking trash to them, and how the color of the women they invite to go boating incites sports fans, the police, and the press. And they are staying out of Roger Goodell™s crosshairs.