NFL moral guide gives violent, overpaid players slap on wrist

Tuesday, April 21, 1998

NFL moral guide gives violent, overpaid players slap on
wrist

COLUMN: Randy Moss’ abusive acts should hurt his chances in pro
draft

After years of the drug addict signing the million dollar deal,
the wife beater making the all-star team and the felon going to the
Super Bowl, we can finally chalk one up for the proverbial good
guy.

Finally, character gets off the hook, and a phenomenal athlete
with a checkered past gets smacked so hard he falls 16 spots in the
NFL draft.

Sure, wide receiver Randy Moss may have good hands, but the fact
that they landed on his girlfriend in anger was more important to
the Tennessee Oilers, who took a decidedly inferior receiver, Kevin
Dyson, over Moss.

Sure Randy Moss will probably be a bigger offensive force than
anyone else taken over the weekend not named Manning or Leaf, but
at least the Fred Taylors and Robert Edwards of the world don’t
kick people in the head when they’re on the ground or get caught
smoking marijuana while on probation.

What more proof do you need of this new desire to draft the
football equivalent of Mr. Rogers than when the offensively
challenged Dallas Cowboys, a team not known for its high moral
standards, opts to let the Moss grow elsewhere, taking an
undersized defensive end instead?

And just think of the nightmare that the Minnesota Vikings, will
face trying to promote this guy.

I can hear the spin doctors now …

"Not only will Moss be an offensive force on the field, but
he’ll be just as offensive off the field. Everyone knows Minnesota
is a boring place; we’re really hoping that Moss will liven things
up a bit."

Absolutely, without any question or doubt, what happened to Moss
was unprecedented, and showed that character is becoming more of a
factor in personnel decisions.

But let’s be careful before we start giving loud "huzzahs" to
the NFL’s newly formed morality, because when it comes to having
character, most NFL teams still rank somewhere between Don King and
a bowl of custard.

The fact that a pot-smoking, girlfriend-beating thug took a
tumble in the first-round shows that maybe character does matter,
but the NFL hierarchy has a long way to go before it can claim
moral purity.

Sure, Mike Ditka could chalk up his selection of a 300-pound
good ole’ boy from San Diego St. because his quarterbacks got
bashed more often than Chancellor Carnesale.

Most likely, however, he’ll claim that he didn’t want to risk
his pick on a player with questionable character.

Keep in mind that this is the same Ditka who went out of his way
to sign running back Lamar Smith to a multimillion dollar contract.
The same Lamar Smith currently serving jail time for driving drunk
and crashing his car, paralyzing then-teammate Mike Frier.

Oh yeah, he signed the contract while on a weekend furlough.

So when Iron Mike took the high moral path, saying that he
wanted players of high character, and was willing to pass up an
impact player to achieve that, take it with a grain of salt.

And when the talking heads from assorted NFL front offices give
themselves kudos for passing on this knucklehead, just remember
that these are the same people who kept Christian Peter, an
admitted substance abuser and convicted sex offender, in the league
because he’s good at stopping the run.

These are the same people who took a convicted criminal,
Lawrence Phillips, sixth in the 1995 draft and gave him
two-million-plus dollars; that’s over one hundred thousand dollars
for every step his girlfriend’s head banged against when he threw
her down a flight of stairs.

Even Moss, though he tumbled down in the draft order, still went
in the first round and will still sign a multi-million dollar
contract and endorsement deals, which isn’t bad for a guy facing an
0-2 count.

So, yeah, Saturday was a step in the right direction, but the
road ahead is murky and bleak for those who long for stiffer
character requirements in sports and still paved with green for
those who break the law as easily as they break the goal line.

Mark Shapiro is a Daily Bruin staff writer and columnist with
absurd amounts of free time. E-mail responses to
[email protected]