WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The National Football League is showing signs of getting off the sidelines in the brouhaha over domestic violence and taking up a new playbook.
The Arizona Cardinals suspended Jonathan Dwyer after his arrest on charges of head-butting and breaking the nose of a woman. The Baltimore Ravens invited fans to trade in jerseys of former star player Ray Rice, who has been indefinitely suspended for punching out his wife.
If teams have learned anything from the abuse scandal convulsing America’s most popular sports league, it may be that acting decisively and quickly against domestic violence is the best way to win in the court of public opinion.
Dwyer is the latest player caught up in the controversy. He was arrested on Wednesday on charges of aggravated assault and left an Arizona jail yesterday.
The team wasted no time in deactivating Dwyer on Wednesday, taking cues from other clubs that kept their players on the field despite similar charges, only to backpedal and take them off the field.
“The Cardinals have the benefit of being fourth in line, so it does benefit them in that sense,” said Robert Boland, a former domestic abuse prosecutor who is now a professor of sports management and law at New York University.
One team that reacted slowly was the Baltimore Ravens, which was caught in the early days of the crisis after Rice beat his then-girlfriend in a casino elevator in February. He was kept on the team with a two-game suspension until a security video surfaced last week showing the punch that knocked his now-wife out cold.
The team invited fans to exchange their Rice jerseys today and tomorrow at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium for that of another player, the team said.
It is too early to say if the NFL and embattled commissioner Roger Goodell are turning the corner on the crisis.
Sponsors and women’s groups continued to voice concern over the league’s handling of the spate of cases and urged the NFL to respond more forcefully.
Last evening in Atlanta, site of the day’s only nationally televised NFL game, national women’s advocacy group UltraViolet will have a plane fly over the stadium with a banner saying “#GoodellMustGo” for the game between the Falcons and the Tampa Bay Bucaneers.
Boland said the NFL is on a “surrealistic bumpy ride,” at a time when it should be celebrating the first month of the season and a new television package last night.
“I don’t want to say the NFL is not taking a hit because this is certainly a very bad cycle for them,” Boland said. “On the other hand, the NFL is still the biggest platform to advertise on and be a sponsor of.
“Not today, because it’s too big of a cycle, but at some point during the course of the year, they’ll be able to turn this into a positive.”