The NFL is terrible when it comes to consistency and logic in the way it dishes out discipline. Adam Jones slammed the head of Amari Cooper and got fined just $35,000. Tom Brady allegedly, indirectly, got some air deflated out of a football? Four game suspension.
Jones, who has had his fair share of problems on and off the field, said he didn’t even expect to get punished. Who knew that assaulting someone without a helmet on the field will result in a fine. It should be a lot more. This wasn’t just some heat of the moment shoving or something that happens quite often on the NFL field. This was violence – slapping Cooper’s helmet off and then slamming his head into the helmet. Jones probably retaliated to Cooper jabbing him in the throat on the previous play.
Brady? Well, I think most people believe he had something to do with the balls getting deflated. But the NFL couldn’t prove anything, and even the obstruction of justice allegations, while probably true, aren’t projected to hold in the court, which isn’t stopping the NFL from appealing.
The NFL has a weird way of deciding what’s terrible for the game and what’s simply a part of a regular Sunday afternoon. Maybe it’s not surprising that a league that’s trying as hard as possible to escape responsibility for lasting brain damage and other injuries to its players sees Jones’ act and thinks it doesn’t deserve too much attention, while the witch hunt after Brady and the New England Patriots seems rabid and mad, as if to rectify past mistakes, especially the handling of SpyGate.