It's nearly 5 a.m. Do you know where your kids are?
New York Jets coach Rex Ryan might not be able to answer this question with a 'yes' - and he might just cuss you out for asking. I am, of course, talking about the arrest of Braylon Edwards early last Tuesday morning after the wide receiver blew a .16 on a breathalyzer. After issuing an apology the next day, Edwards received a slap on the wrist from the team's upper management by having to sit out the first quarter of last Sunday's game against the Dolphins in Miami.
During the days following his arrest, Edwards' biggest challenge had nothing to do with the problems your average Joe would face after a DUI and instead lied in whether he should shave his "Urban Amish" beard. In the end, he did decide to shave, thus preventing himself from showing up in Miami resembling a drunken homeless man.
At said game, Mark Sanchez hooked up with Edwards for a 67-yard touchdown during the third quarter that put New York up for good. What a great way to learn some accountability less than a week after his arrest. On top of this, Edwards did a dance in the end zone after getting flagged for excessive celebration the week before. Just another lesson he failed to learn.
Jets legend Joe Namath agrees with me, as he expressed his opinion last Thursday that the penalty was not sufficiently harsh. Although I am glad "Broadway Joe" and I are on the same page, he has had his fair share of similar problems. As a young quarterback during the early days of the Super Bowl era, Namath had a good run of partying all night and, according to teammates, would show up to the locker room with the aroma of booze still on his breath. After being pulled over numerous times, Namath was finally arrested for drunk driving in August 1983. Namath has hardly slowed down - he made headlines again in 2003 after hitting on a sideline reporter during a Sunday Night Football broadcast while allegedly intoxicated. Like many athletes of his time and ours, it is clear that Namath has not learned much about accountability that many of us without celebrity status have been forced to learn.
Before moving on, I will take the time to mention O.J. and Kobe ... 'nuff said. Although O.J. finally got what was long coming to him, these instances are provide yet more examples of how we idealize our athletic heroes to a ludicrous degree.
During the past decade, a slew of athletes immediately stand out in my mind as lawbreakers who seemingly learned little to nothing from their pasts. In fact, all of the names appearing on my list are football players - what an interesting trend. Chances are high that these are the guys who were at the top of the social food chain throughout high school and college and had many things handed to them - especially if they played for Southern California.
The most press regarding one of these incidents probably resulted from the infamous Michael Vick dog fighting operation. I respect that Vick did his time and has worked hard to reestablish himself, even with just a year-and-a-half having passed since his sentence ended. But that does not exonerate him for thinking he was above the law because he was an elite football player. There was also the shooting incident at his birthday party this past summer - though, to be fair, he was apparently not involved.
My remaining examples don't get so much credit. For a few years, Adam "Pacman" Jones found his way into the news all the time. One week he was beating strippers, biting ankles and shooting people. The next, his car was seized during a cocaine bust. It is true that Jones was suspended by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for the entirety of the 2007 season while he did time in prison, but he is now back to the gridiron. Although he has not appeared in headlines of late, he has showed again and again that he cannot learn his lesson. I wonder how many of us would be able to return to our day jobs with such ease after these kinds of altercations.
This brings me to a suspension with "big" implications for this year's NFL season. We all know Ben Roethlisberger's story, and I do not mean the motorcycle accident he endured despite not having a valid motorcycle license. I am referring not to his first, but his second, alleged sexual assault. Last March, police officials in Milledgeville, Ga., began investigating the alleged sexual assault of a 20-year-old student in a nightclub restroom. As the student claimed - while she was drunk in the hospital that night - "a boy kind of raped me." But Big Ben hired the same lawyer who defended Ray Lewis during his murder trial, and less than a month later, it was announced that no charges would be brought. Hooray for Big Ben! His punishment will be a very small, six-game suspension - wait, scratch that, Goodell lowered it to just four games after Roethlisberger begged for forgiveness.
The most horrific of all these stories is Dont
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