As sports fans we’ve all been there. Suddenly your favorite team acquires a player you despise -- and that’s when the rationalizing begins.
I’m in that place now with the New England Patriots. When they started winning Super Bowls last decade, the way they did it resonated with me. They were selfless and business-like. They didn’t mouth off. They let their play do the talking.
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| Albert Haynesworth |
Later it came to light that the Patriots were taping opponents signals from their sideline. No matter. I dismissed it as political witch-hunt against Coach Bill Belichick by a hated rival and a jealous league. The transgression was a technicality, I argued. I still believe that.
Then the Patriots acquired Randy Moss, a gifted receiver and notorious malcontent. Not a problem. Playing for an intelligent, well-run organization like the Patriots would “cure” Randy of his antisocial behavior. Lo and behold it did. For a few years anyway.
But now the Patriots have taken on in the person of Albert Haynesworth a miscreant on a whole new level. I won’t replay his entire rap sheet, but when intentionally stomping on the helmet-less head of an opponent is not your most heinous misadventure, you’ve got issues. The one I am having the hardest time getting past is that he was driving 105 mph in 2009 when he tried to pass a car on Interstate 65 south of Nashville. The other driver crashed into a concrete median and is paralyzed. Albert, an immensely talented-when-motivated defensive lineman, now says it’s “all in the past.”
For him, perhaps.
Yet sports loyalties die hard, and the bottom line is that I have too much emotionally invested in the Patriots to quit them. Instead, I’m scrambling to put a smiley face on Haynesworth’s past, and it’s working
Take the reckless driving. Albert isn’t the first young man to floor it in a fancy car. Fact is, this correspondent once hit 110 mph in his wife’s Volvo. True, I did it in Montana, which is essentially vacant, but you could correctly argue that Albert and I are both guilty of the same behavior. The only difference is I was fortunate not to hurt anyone. Albert isn’t evil -- just unlucky.
The head-stomping outburst is disturbing, no question. But Albert was penalized severely by the NFL and issued a sincere-sounding apology in which he expressed disgust at his actions. He was caught up in the moment. He over-reacted. Anyone out there not guilty of same? The upside is the passion. A lot of so-called experts say Albert doesn’t care about football, just the paycheck. Oh, really? Doing a ho-down on a Dallas Cowboy’s melon tells me that if anything Albert cares too much. The trick is to channel his fierce will to win in a more positive direction. The Patriots are the perfect organization to help Albert actualize his human potential. Good for Albert. Good for the Patriots. Good for society.
Okay, let’s move beyond mere argumentation and into a more empirical vein. In these times of high publicized misconduct by athletes, what fans really need is a reliable yardstick by which to determine whether they can root for their favorite team with a clear conscience even if their favorite team suits up Jeffrey Dahmer.
To help in this regard I’ve developed the NFL Serious Crime Disbursement Formula. It works like this:
Based on my research, each NFL roster accounts for approximately 11 serious arrests on average. In other words, if you add up all the arrests of everyone on each roster during their college and NFL playing years, each NFL teams averages 11 arrestees.
Now let’s break down the different kinds of crimes, assigning a point value of 1 for the least serious and 5 for the most serious:
1 point: Weapons violations, drug violations (marijuana excluded), felony D.U.I., larceny, verbal threats and intimidation, perjury, resisting arrest, obnoxious Tweeting.
2 points: Motor vehicle theft, burglary, hate crimes, simple assault on wife or girlfriend, non-forcible sexual offenses, sports memorabilia fraud.
3 points: Aggravated assault, robbery, accomplice to homicide, forcible sex offenses, manslaughter, missed tackles
4 points: Homicide.
5 points: Running a dog fighting ring.
Based on this 1-5 scale, the median arrest number is 3. Multiply that number by 11 -- the number of arrests per team -- and you get a Median NFL Crime Index of 33. If your team scores 33 or below, you can feel good rooting for your guys. If your team scores above 33, you’re morally compromised if you don’t switch teams immediately.
In this way no fan’s loyalty can be tested by the criminality of any one player. Because the Patriots are generally an upstanding group of young men, they’re able to absorb the thuggery (much overstated in my opinion) of Albert Haynesworth. But the team is on notice. Should they add a Michael Vick or Shawne Marriman -- arrested in 2009 for allegedly choking and restraining 4’11’’ realty TV star Tila Tequila -- I might have to dump the Pats and start rooting for the Buffalo Bills.
And that would be crime.
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