I will take him at his word, that he wants to be the best he can be. He can’t be a great receiver if he is in the iron hotel. I really hope he has it together. He seems like a nice kid.

You stated very well what I have been trying to get out for a couple of days.

I agree 100%. I just dont like how the media can push the publics opinion one wat or the other.If they do do not like someone. Just my 2 cents

Before teaching I worked in mental health. Currently I work in law enforcement. I repectfully disagree with a couple of things in your comments.

The fact that the girlfriend remained in the relationship means nothing (to me). As you might be aware, women often stay in abusive relationships because of either a fear of leaving, a percieved lack of resources, or “love” for the abuser. If you’ve ever seen a child crying as an officer takes the child from an abusive parent, you might know what I mean about a pathological “love” for an abuser.

Also, while domestic abuse goes both ways (men are much less likely to report abuse), the clear and vast majority of domineering physical abuse is men against women. This is supported in mental health journals and by the DOJ.

I also believe that while many jurisdications require an arrest in alleged abuse cases, in many cases officers use “officer discretion” (whether it is proper or not). It has been my experience that officers go out of their way to be non-interventionists in domestic cases.

Last, I don’t know what “game” is involved in arresting a male subject when he pushes his wife (or anyone, for that matter) in the presence of law enforcement officers. There’s no “just” pushing a wife or girlfriend, or even a drunk buddy in front of the police without a reasonable consequence. It shouldn’t be done if law enforcement isn’t present either. Either way, the “pusher” is a piece of trash. Indeed, I don’t get the point about the person who “calls the police” (or “cops” as you call them). It is typical for the calling party in any alleged crime to be the caller, not the perpetrator.

In the American culture, we hold certain professions above others in the conduct of employees. When I was a teacher, I could have lost my job for being seen in a “strip club” or even a liquor store. Is that fair? I don’t know. But it is reasonable. Had I been arrested for driving while impaired, I would have lot my job before even being tried. The issue is “appearence of evil”, not guilt. One could fight such a thing in the legal system, but we aren’t talking “legalities” here. Schools and the parents they serve are not well served when a faculty member brings personal disorder into a school, even when the faculty member did no wrong. It’s not a matter of fairness, but what is best for the structure. For that reason, good teachers go out of their way to avoid any question of impropriety. Upstanding educators resign when they bring discredit on their institution, even if they are not at fault for the situation that came about. Military officers are another example. Our politcal leaders used to practice “resignation with honor”, but this was lost after Nixon.

What does this have to do with athletes? One could point out that they are role models for youth, but this is a debatable point. Easier to argue is that playing professional football is a privledge, and one is expected to uphold a certain amount of character in the public eye. What a public person does in private is, like it or not, public. If one chooses to enter professional football, he does it with the clear implication that his personal life is fair game for employer decision making. If one doesn’t subscribe to this, he shouldn’t sign the player contract that spells this out.

I may be old fashioned, but I believe that my employer has a right to expect my loyalty. That means that I don’t run to the legal system to fight for my job if I’m a liablity to my employer.

None of us know what happened. True. But repeated brushes with the law tend to demonstrate to reasonable people that there is a problem. If I was thinking like a lawyer, I would be precluded from thinking this way because prior behavior is a consideration for sentencing, not for determining guilt. But for those of us not forced to think in a legal framework, Brandon’s continued brushes with the law tend to demonstrate a continuing pattern of behavior.

I don’t know if Marshall is responsible or not. I do know that when lawyers get involved you get a lot of ridiculous behavior, whether it is the lawyer for Brandon shifting the blame to the girlfriend (the girfriend who surely must be responsible for all of Brandon’s behavior) or the girlfriends demand for so much money (which is the product of a litigious society, again, thanks to some in the legal profession). Frankly, I’m not happy with the behavior of either side in the matter. All I’m concerned about is football (in my role as an MHR member). Apparently, the NFL is concerned enough about it’s own image that it too is taking another look at Brandon.

In terms of the female being the dominator, you would have to define what you mean by “often”. It is certainly not close to being “more often the case” if that’s what you meant to convey. The literature just doesn’t support such a contention. Men are clearly the aggressors more often than not in cases of spousal abuse (which includes the live-in girlfriend dynamic).

I’m not going to address the assertion that the sex after abuse can be great. If you are talking about the dominator in some fetish context, you are way out of what we were talking about. I’m talking about the dominator in terms of who the abuser is in terms of domestic violence, not some fetish. To assert that abused women enjoy the sex after being attacked is just bizarre. I’ll assume that this couldn’t possibly be what you were hinting at, since the contention is just too out of the mainstream for reasoned discussion.

Since we know little about this case, it is just as unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that there is co-dependence involved. What is not an extraordinary leap is to assume that a young man who gets in consistent legal trouble is a fool.

The use of the term cops is debatable. Just as some lawyers respond to a judge with “Yes Judge” in an informal sense, many attorneys use the more formal (ie polite) “Yes, your honor”. While the term “cop” can be used without the intent to convey disrespect, the term can often be indicative of attitude.

For example, I often hear offenders, defense attorneys, and less educated folks use the term “cops”. When speaking with people whose perception of law enforcement is more positive, I often hear “officer” or “police”. It’s much like the difference between using “yeah” and “yes sir”. While one isn’t neccassarily impolite, it lacks the respect of the latter. It’s a matter of reasonable disagreement. In my book, I don’t go to the extreme of telling my child to say “Yes Sir”, but I do require “yes” instead of “yeah”. I also don’t allow use of the term “cop”. Reasonable minds can differ.