Texans LB Brian Cushing was suspended for the first 4 games of the 2010 NFL season after testing positive for a female fertility drug. As said edict was handed down after the Associated Press named Cushing their 2009 Defensive Rookie Of The Year, the AP opted for a re-vote. Trouble is, Cushing was voted the winner on the second occasion as well.
AP voters “had a chance to send a message “ albeit a small and symbolic one “ to future generations of football players by stripping the Houston linebacker of an honor he earned after cheating,” complains the Newark Star-Ledger’s Steve Politi. “Instead they sent another message altogether: Nobody cares about PEDs in professional football.” The Houston Chronicle’s Richard Justice, while far from happy with his colleagues (“why are media members voting in the first place?”) weirdly suggests this is somehow due to fan apathy.
Like the voters, you simply don’t care. In fact, you’re tired of people standing on their soap boxes and preaching about the wrongs of cheating.
All you care about is (a) who’ll replace Cushing while he serves a four-game suspension for cheating and (b) how he plays when he returns. If he’s a shell of the player he once was, then you might just get mad. Otherwise, you don’t care.
You care when baseball players cheat. You jump up and down and hold your breath and say you’ll never go to another game. You say cheating ruined baseball.
But the NFL gets a free pass. Maybe it’s because you’re never allowed to know NFL players. Their access to fans and media is tightly controlled. They wear helmets. And the NFL is so violent, so filled with broken bones and torn ligaments and spinal injuries and concussions, that you’ve become de-sensitized to the ethics of cheating.
So Cushing won an endorsement of his cheating on Wednesday. With that vote, a message went forth to every NFL player: do what you have to do because those of us in the media simply don’t care.
OK, now I’m confused. Justice insists the media doesn’t care, but a cursory google search with the words “Cushing”, and “re-vote” unveils no shortage of outrage over today’s result, including Justice’s entry. As far as fans holding the NFL to a lesser standard than Major League Baseball, what genuine boycott ever took place in the wake of MLB’s numerous PED revelations? It took a global economic crisis to halt MLB’s unprecedented run of commercial success ; new cathedrals to capitalism were built in the Bronx, Queens, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Minneapolis just to name a few cities where The Steroid Era failed to kill public interest in baseball.
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I don’t want to weigh in regarding whether or not the media cares or ignores PED’s in the NFL, however I would say that while “The Steroid Era failed to kill public interest in baseball” that public interest isn’t not even close to the interest in pro football. The NFL is by far the most popular sport in this country and I would have to agree that for whatever reason a major PED controversy hasn’t hit the NFL like it has MLB. Now whether this is due to the media, fan support, or the inherent power the NFL has I don’t know. But I would wager that you’re not going to see congressional hearings anytime soon about PED’s in the NFL.
I’d argue the public fascination with the NFL has less to due with a distaste for PED’s and more to do with pro football being such a perfectly packaged televised spectacle. You’re less likely to see congressional hearings about PED’s in the NFL because until recently football’s players union was mostly neutered compared to the MLBPA. It’s been far easier for the NFL to impose policies and penalties.
I’ll not argue with you the NFL long ago leapfrogged MLB as the national pastime, but the latter’s attendances are robust — much more so than they were in prior generation. MLB Advanced Media is an acknowledged cash cow and fellas like Aaron Gleeman can avoid getting real jobs. by almost every conceivable measuring stick, baseball is doing awfully well and there’s little evidence to suggest PED scandals have been anything besides a harmless public relations hiccup.
Major steroid controversies HAVE hit the NFL, but the Cushing story is unlikely to leave any more or less of a lasting impact than the Star Caps situation. On the other hand, I don’t know if baseball has had something recently that could compare to Spygate (Charlie Manuel would agree with me, I think), nor has MLB had to deal with anything nearly as unsettling as cases involving Rae Carruth, Ray Lewis, Pacman Jones or Ben Roethlisberger. I’d argue the teflon NFL shield is held to a different standard than other sports, but ultimately it might come down to what huge audiences prefer.
Well said. I was just talking to a friend about how the NFL is packaged as an entertainment machine in a way closer to pro wrestling than pro baseball. I agree with you that the “teflon NFL shield” is held to a different standard and it is probably due to the huge numbers that it pulls in. PED’s, Roethlisberger, handguns, knives, whatever…the NFL won’t be phased.
Yeah, those PED scandals in MLB were big name players and gave everyone pause but at the end of the day the so called “death of baseball” was more hype by the media than reality (how many articles came out in the last ten years saying the steroid era killed MLB?) But you’re right MLB, aside from some smaller market numbers, seems to be doing fine.
I’m more of a baseball guy and maybe it’s cause I’m writing from Baltimore, with the O’s in free fall, that I get depressed watching a city seemly care less and less about what the O’s did but every fucking thing the Ravens do year round is a major news event. I don’t know I guess that’s the way it is in cities with good baseball clubs too…