In a move that came as no surprise at all, the Cleveland Browns cut ties with embattled quarterback Johnny Manziel on Friday. Given Manziel’s inability to control his drinking, as well as the fact he faces charges that he violently attacked his former girlfriend, they had no choice. What is really telling, though, is that the NFL has yet to act despite having more than enough evidence to do so. The NFL’s silence proves that it still isn’t taking domestic violence seriously.
Within hours of learning that Manziel was being investigated for a horrific assault on his former girlfriend, Colleen Crowley, the Browns all but announced they would release him as soon as the NFL’s new fiscal year began on March 9. However, March 9 came and went, and Manziel was still on the roster. March 10 also came and went with Manziel still on the roster.
According to Mary Kay Cabot of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, it was mainly because the Browns were trying to find someone to take Manziel’s contract off their hands. He was due to earn a total of $2.1 million in base salary over the 2016 and 2017 seasons, as well as a $250,000 roster bonus in March 2017. He would have counted $4.1 million against their salary cap had they released him.
However, if the league suspended Manziel for violating the personal conduct policy, the Browns would have been free to recover that guaranteed money. It appears the NFL is waiting for a Dallas County grand jury to decide whether to indict him. If that’s the case, it’s ignoring a 500-pound gorilla in the room. Crowley persuaded a judge to issue a sweeping protective order barring Manziel from coming within 500 feet of her until 2018. It was a relatively easy call, considering that Manziel hit Crowley so hard that it punctured her left eardrum; she still couldn’t hear out of her left ear for a few days after the attack.
The NFL’s personal conduct policy allows commissioner Roger Goodell to suspend a player if there are “indisputable facts” that qualify as violations–even if a player isn’t convicted of a crime. You can’t get much more indisputable than a protective order for domestic violence. The NFL had more than enough to take action against Manziel–and as I write this on Saturday morning, it hasn’t done so. Until it does so, all the talk we heard in the wake of the Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Greg Hardy snafus about the need to “get it right” on domestic violence is just that–talk.
Manziel himself is doing a really good job of proving why the NFL is being downright foolish in not acting now. In an apparent effort to atone for falling down on the Erin Andrews case, TMZ got its hands on videos showing Manziel partying in the days before the Browns finally unloaded him. Just hours after the grand jury got his domestic violence case, he was seen at a Miami nightclub.
Then on the night of March 9, he was seen partying at a Hollywood nightclub for the third night in a row.
He came back to that club again a night later.
And all this while Crowley is still recovering from the effects of what he did to her. It’s even harder to understand given his documented problems with alcohol–indeed, his own father fears that the way his son is going, he won’t live to see his 24th birthday.
Goodell should take a cue from former NBA commissioner David Stern. Back in 2010, Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas was caught bringing guns into the Verizon Center in violation of both NBA rules and D. C. ordinances. The NBA was initially going to withhold disciplining him until the case played out in court. But after Arenas was seen pretending to shoot his teammates during pregame introductions before a game against the Philadelphia 76ers, Stern suspended Arenas indefinitely until the NBA’s investigation was complete. Stern said that based on Arenas’ behavior, it was clear that he was “not currently fit to take the court for an NBA game.” He was ultimately suspended for the remainder of the season.
This is no different. At present, Manziel is not fit to be on an NFL sideline. The league must do whatever it can to make sure no team is foolish enough to sign him. Once its investigation is complete, unless we hear something we haven’t heard or see something we haven’t seen, anything less than a one-year suspension would be a joke.
