Professional football has been around for more than 100 years. From pretty much the start, the sport has been rocked by scandals and controversies, both on and off the field; indeed, organized pro football was only in its second season of play when the first controversy - over whether the Buffalo All-Americans or Chicago Staleys should be crown league champs - arose. One of the more unusual controversies dealt with the New England Patriots allegedly deflating footballs in order to get an edge on their opponent.
Unfortunately, many of the scandals and controversies the NFL has dealt with go beyond the football field. Even though the NFL encourages fans wagering, players betting on games is against the rules; in the 1960s, this temporarily derailed the careers of two of the NFL's biggest stars. Meanwhile, Colin Kaepernick didn't see his career derailed by betting on games but by acting out against racial injustice; his decision to kneel during the National Anthem sparked a nationwide debate about patriotism, equal rights, and free speech. It also effectively got him blackballed from the NFL. But some of the biggest scandals the NFL has dealt with have to do with the players' violent off-the-field behavior, from sexual assault and domestic violence to murder.
Below are the stories behind some of these scandals.
When: 2016
The Controversy: Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, first drew attention for his protest against racial injustice when he was photographed sitting during the National Anthem before a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers in August 2016.
The biracial quarterback, who was adopted and raised by a white couple, explained his actions by stating, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
The NFL quickly came out with a statement saying that players “are encouraged but not required” to stand during the anthem, while the 49ers commented that while the anthem “is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens,” the team recognized “the right of an individual to choose to participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”
Kaepernick continued his protest, although after speaking to Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret turned NFL player, he decided to kneel in protest, rather than sit. San Francisco teammate Eric Reid was the first to join Kaepernick in his protest, but by September 11, 2016, players on teams across the league began to join in.
On September 22 of that year, Kaepernick, who at the time was the 49ers' backup QB, appeared on the cover of Time magazine. And although he was voted the most hated player in the NFL, he also topped all NFL players in jersey sales.
The Outcome: As the protests and the arguments for and against it continued to rage, Kaepernick eventually regained his starting job. But the 49ers finished the year 2-14, and after the season, the quarterback opted out of his contract, becoming a free agent.
However no other team signed him, and in October 2017 he filed a grievance against the NFL, alleging that the owners had colluded to blackball him. The grievance was settled in February 2019, but Kaepernick has never gotten another opportunity to play in the NFL.
When: June 14-26, 2013
The Controversy: In the summer of 2013 Aaron Hernandez was a rising star in the NFL; in August 2012, the New England Patriots' tight end had signed a five-year contract extension worth a maximum of $40 million. But his NFL career came to an abrupt end on June 26, 2013, when he was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Odin Lloyd, a friend of the tight end who reportedly had been dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée.
According to the prosecutor, the murder stemmed from Hernandez having issues with some things that went on during a night out at a Boston night club on June 14, including Lloyd talking to a couple of men that “Hernandez had troubles with.” Two nights later Hernandez and two other men picked up Lloyd in the middle of the night, and the discussion turned to the trip to the club. Lloyd texted his sister, "Did you see who I am with?" When she asked who, Lloyd answered, at 3:22 a.m., "NFL," then, a minute later, "Just so you know." A few minutes later, workers at an industrial park reportedly heard gunshots. Lloyd's body was found on June 17; he had been shot multiple times in the back and chest.
The Outcome: The Patriots released Hernandez just two hours after he was arrested on June 26. The very next day investigators suggested Hernandez might be connected to an unsolved double murder that occurred in Boston in July 2012. In August 2013, a Grand Jury indicted Hernandez in Lloyd's death; the following month he pled not guilty. In May 2014 he was indicted for the 2012 double murder in Boston, but again pled not guilty. Hernandez went on trial for Lloyd's murder in January 2015; on April 15, 2015 he was found guilty of first-degree murder, a conviction that carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. But on April 14, 2017, he was found not guilty in the trial concerning the 2012 double murder.
Three days after being acquitted on the second murder charge (April 17, 2017), the 27-year-old Hernandez committed suicide, hanging himself in his prison cell.. In May 2017 a Massachusetts judge vacated Hernandez's murder conviction on the grounds that he had died before his appeal of the conviction could be heard. But in March 2019 the Massachusetts Supreme Court reinstated the conviction and also threw out the rule that the lower court judge had used to vacate the conviction, saying that rule was outdated.
His brain was donated for medical study, and in Sept. 2017 it was announced that tests showed that the former football star had severe CTE, the same degenerative brain disease that has been found in more than 100 other former NFL players.
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When: 1999
The Controversy: On November 16, 1999, Cherica Adams was shot multiple times while driving home after going to a movie with her on-and-off boyfriend, Carolina Panthers' WR Rae Carruth. Adams, who was eight months pregnant with Carruth's baby, told the 9-1-1 operator that Carruth, who was driving the car ahead of her, had slowed down, and then a man inside another car had pulled up alongside her car and shot her. Adams died of her wounds four weeks after being shot, but her baby boy survived.
Chancellor Lee Adams was born with permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy. Carruth jumped bail and went on the run after Adams's death, leading to a manhunt. Apprehended in December 1999, he was charged with hiring three men to murder Adams and his unborn son, allegedly because he was angry that she had refused to have an abortion and he did not want to pay child support.
The Outcome: At Carruth's trial, which opened in November 2000, Van Brett Watkins, the hitman who had already confessed to having been the one to shoot Adams, testified against the football player. He stated that at a meeting with Carruth in June 1999, the football player had asked Watkins how much it would cost to get Watkins to beat up Adams badly enough that it would result in her losing the baby.
Watkins testified that when he told Carruth, “I don't beat up a girl, I kill people,” the football player asked him, “how much would you charge?” Carruth's defense team, meanwhile, claimed that Carruth did not plan Adams' murder. but that Watkins had killed Adams in revenge for Carruth reneging on a planned drug deal.
Carruth was convicted in 2001 on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, discharging a firearm into occupied property and attempting to destroy an unborn child, although he was acquitted of first-degree murder. He was released from prison in October 2018. Watkins was convicted of second-degree murder and ended up dying in prison of natural causes in December 2023. Chancellor Lee Adams graduated from high school in 2021.
When: 2007, January 2015
The Controversy: In Week One of the 2007 NFL season, NFL officials caught New England Patriots video assistant Matt Estrella taping the New York Jets coaches' defensive signals from the sideline. When the league sent investigators to the Patriots' offices they found videotapes of different teams' defensive signals and detailed notes supporting the videotapes. Some of the tapes and notes went back seven seasons. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell immediately instructed the investigators to destroy the tapes and notes.
“Deflategate” revolved around the 2014 AFC Championship Game between the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Not long after the contest ended, Colts' beat reporter Bob Kravitz tweeted that the NFL was investigating whether New England had deliberately deflated some of the footballs that had been used in the game. ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported that 11 of the 12 ball used in the first half had been underinflated. Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady denied any knowledge of the footballs being deflated, but the league appointed executive V.P.s Jeff Pash and Ted Wells to lead an investigation. In late January reports came out saying that a Patriots' locker room attendant had been seen on video taking footballs from the officials' locker room into a bathroom before the game.
The NFL's report was released on May 6, 2015. It stated that it was ""more probable than not" that the Patriots had deliberately deflated footballs before the AFC title game and that Brady was “at least generally aware” of these rules violations. Brady refused to provide his own emails, texts, or phone records to the NFL, but investigators had text messages between locker room manager Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski that implicated the quarterback. They also had Jastremski's phone records, which showed an unusual number of phone calls between the equipment assistant and Brady in the immediate aftermath of the tampering suspicions going public.
The Outcome: Just a few days after Estrella was caught videotaping the Jets' signals, Belichick was fined $500,000 - the maximum amount allowed under league rules - for his role in “Spygate." The Patriots were fined $250,000 and lost their first-round pick in the 2008 draft. But many questioned the haste of Goodell's decision. In April 2008, the NFL held a secret meeting in which owners questioned the commissioner about why he had imposed the penalties on the Patriots before the NFL had even sent investigators to the Patriots' offices, and why he had ordered the videotapes and notes that the investigators found destroyed. The commissioner claimed that he had ordered them destroyed so they couldn't be used in the future.
At this same meeting, Belichick and Patriots' owner Robert Kraft apologized to the other owners for the controversy, although Belichick claimed that he thought it was within the rules to videotape opposing teams' signals as long as the information wasn't used in real time.
In May 2015, Brady received a four-game suspension for his role in “Deflategate," while the Patriots were fined $1 million and lost two draft picks. Meanwhile McNally and Jastremski were indefinitely suspended by the team. Brady appealed his suspension, which originally was supposed to be for the first four games of the 2015 season. After Goodell - who refused the NFLPA's request to recuse himself - rejected the appeal, the case landed in a New York courtroom; in November, U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Berman ruled in favor of the quarterback, lifting his suspension. The NFL appealed the decision, but the ruling allowed Brady to play during the 2015 season. In April 2016 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York reinstated the suspension; Brady filed an appeal for a second hearing, but after this is denied he finally agreed to serve the suspension, sitting out the first four games of the 2016 season.
When: 2007
The Controversy: In April 2007, law enforcement officials raided a property in rural Virginia that was owned by Michael Vick, the star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons. There, they found many pit bulls, some of which showed signs of neglect, along with evidence of an illegal dog fighting business. A few months later, Vick and three other men were charged with engaging in competitive dogfighting, obtaining and training pit bulls for fighting, and operating their business (known as Bad Newz Kennels) across state lines.
All four originally pled not guilty, but Vick's co-defendants later changed their pleas to guilty and testified that Vick had both bankrolled the business and taken part in the execution of several dogs.
The Outcome: On August 27, 2007, Vick pleaded guilty to one count of “conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture." The quarterback, who had signed a 10-year, $130 million contract with the Falcons in 2004, was immediately suspended without pay by the NFL and also lost his endorsement deals. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter to the quarterback in which he stated that "your admitted conduct was not only illegal, but also cruel and reprehensible" and that “you have engaged in conduct detrimental to the welfare of the NFL and have violated the league's personal conduct policy."
In December 2007, Vick received a sentence of 23 months in federal prison; the judge gave him a stiffer sentence than the 12 to 18-month sentence suggested by federal guidelines because he felt that Vick had failed to accept any responsibility for his actions. In November 2008, the quarterback pled guilty to dogfighting charges in Virginia, receiving a suspended three-year sentence.
Vick was released from prison in May 2009 and conditionally reinstated to the NFL two months later. In August 2009 he signed a two-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles, and although his public image never fully recovered, he remained in the NFL until retiring in 2017.
- Photo:
- Keith Allison
- Wikimedia Commons
- CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0
When: 2014
The Controversy: Ray Rice was a star running back for the Baltimore Ravens – a three-time Pro Bowler, a two-time Pro Bowler, and a Super Bowl champion. On February 15, 2014, Rice and his fiancée Janay Palmer were arrested for assaulting each other inside an Atlantic City casino. A few days later TMZ released footage that showed Rice dragging a seemingly unconscious Palmer out of an elevator before being confronted by what appeared to be a security person and then walking away.
The police charged Rice with simple assault-domestic assault and Palmer with simple assault. Palmer's charge ended up being dropped, but on March 27, 2014, a grand jury indicted Rice on a charge of third-degree aggravated assault, a felony that, if Rice got convicted, would carry with it a prison sentence of up three to five years. Rice and Palmer got married one day after he was indicted by the grand jury.
The Outcome: In July of 2014, the NFL suspended Rice for the first two games of the 2014 season for violating the league's personal conduct policy. That same month Rice publicly apologized for the assault, saying, "My actions were inexcusable. My actions are something I have to live with for the rest of my life… I didn’t publicly apologize to my wife [at a May press conference where Palmer apologized for her actions]. I know that hit home for a lot of people. I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life. Me. She can do no wrong. She’s an angel.”
In August, after receiving harsh criticism for the light punishment given the running back, the NFL announced that going forward, anyone who violated the policy in terms of assault, battery, domestic violence, or sexual assault would be suspended six games for a first offense, and would get a lifetime ban for a second offense. But that wasn't the end of it.
In September 2014, TMZ released new footage from inside the elevator. That footage showed Rice hitting Palmer first, Palmer retaliating, and then the running back knocking his fiancée off her feet with a punch that caused her to hit her head on the hand rail, knocking her out. The recording then showed himdragging Palmer out into the hallway after the elevator doors open.
Shortly after this video was made public, the Ravens cut Rice from the team and the NFL announced they were suspending him indefinitely. An NFL spokesperson told TMZ Sports, “We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until [when TMZ released it].”
In November 2014 Rice got his indefinite ban from the NFL overturned and in January 2015 he settled a grievance with the Ravens in which he had been seeking $3.5 million in back pay. The criminal charges against him were also dropped after he completed a one-year court-supervised program that included anger management counseling. Still, he never played in the NFL again.
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