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Tristan Connors

Dr. McLaughlin

Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric

November 23, 2015

The Relationship Between Social Media and NFL Actions

In the past decade, American football has become seemingly identifiable with American

culture. Certain persons could be identified by the football team they like. Some professional

football players may even be known throughout America not for their skill in the sport, but for

their ventures into other enterprises such as modelling and advertisement. It has truly become

popular across the entire country, but so have the issues concerning the different organizations

which run professional American football leagues, specifically the National Football League (or

NFL). Players in the NFL had been idolized over the past century by Americans, but recently

people have started to realize that their idols have faults. In the past two decades, media has

shifted much of its attention to these popular professional players, and in doing that has dug deep

enough to uncover those faults. These players are people, they have a tendency to occasionally

break the rules and to go against the general morality of modern American society. For

transgressing these rules, then, they are supposed to be accordingly punished.

The punishments doled out though—specifically by the National Football League—have

ranged greatly in terms of severity, especially throughout the past few years. There have been

cases dealing with the same issue, whether they be about substance abuse, domestic violence, or

other off-the-field issues. One major factor which appeared during this time was the increased

presence and power of social media in the National Football League. This establishment of

media in sports almost forced the administration of the NFL to rethink the ways it deals with

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problems which arise in the personal lives of its players. This power that the social media now

held in the realm of American football to inform the general population greatly influenced, and is

currently influencing, the manner in which the NFL deals with the faults of its professional

players.

When dealing with high profile players with off-the-field issues within the past decade,

most people could know of the crimes of Michael Vick and the punishment he faced. The

Michael Vick case was one that involved animal abuse, where the then Atlanta Falcons

quarterback was running a dog fighting ring on his own property. After this was discovered,

Vick was indicted and further investigated to find out his role in this crime against animals. This

is where the social media becomes prevalent, because as this news was released at the start of the

investigation, “many citizens felt Vick should have been sentenced harshly (Emerling, 2007).”

(Piquero, 2011). Even the news just getting released had the public opinion reeling enough to

call out for a severe punishment for Vick. This changed nothing about how the National Football

League was acting, though. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was never moved to take action.

In fact, no action was taken to against Vick from the league until it was released that he had

pleaded guilty to the charges, directly after which he was suspended. And still, the Falcons were

hesitant about releasing Vick. After the Falcons actually followed through with Vick’s release,

he served eighteen months in prison, after which the NFL decided to lift his suspension. He was

even able to sign a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. This once again set off the social

media, part of which included the launch of a poll to pro football fans where fans responded that

they  “(1) believed Vick should receive some prison time (short=51 percent, long=35 percent),

(2) that he should never be allowed to play in the NFL again (58 percent), and (3) did not want

their favorite team to make an attempt to acquire his football services once he had served his

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sentence (75 percent)” (Piquero, 2011). One can from the response of the public that the social

media had heavily influenced the opinions of many pro football fans. This is especially because

there is no mention of how long the dog fighting ring had been going on, and neglected to

mention that Vick was even sentenced to more years in prison than the prosecution had been

looking for (Unites States v. Vick, 2007). This withheld information helped the public’s case

against him even more. Vick had already missed two seasons worth of football along with his

reputation as a respectable player in the eyes of the general American population. This reputation

even stayed within the National Football League, where he was never offered a starting spot by

another professional football team after the Eagles, despite his resume as a former-potential Hall

of Fame quarterback. In essence, one can say that Vick’s punishment was more severe than what

was intended given his circumstances, but the information given out (and held back) by the

media greatly affected the fate of Michael Vick in the NFL.

When dealing with the reaction of the media to the infractions of professional football

players, quarterback Tom Brady and the “Spygate” and “Deflategate” scandals are particularly

synonymous with the famous player’s name. The first of the two to arise was the Spygate

scandal, which mostly involved the New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. In it, multiple

people and teams accused the Patriots of illegally recording the signals and audible plays of

certain teams to gain and unfair advantage in terms of strategy. These accusations also happened

to come in 2007, which also happened to be the time of the Patriots’ undefeated season (Griver,

2011). Although Tom Brady was not directly related in the recording of these videos, he was still

criticized for operating under Belichick with the presence of the video tapes. In the second

incident, Tom Brady directly accused of causing an illegal alteration of game footballs to get a

better grip on each football in a playoff game (Clark, 2015). Brady was subsequently suspended

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for four games in the following 2015 football season, which was actually overturned before the

season began (“Tom Brady Suspension Timeline,” 2015). In both scenarios, the social media had

a great role in the turnouts. With the presence of media to release information to the public, the

cases against Tom Brady developed around this media. Much of this media came through

statements and different information found by the investigations. In the Spygate scandal

specifically, the media started to influence the cases once it was found that the tapes of defensive

signals recorded by the Patriots were destroyed by the NFL administration (Griver, 2011). This

caused an outrage among teams within the NFL (because of the belief that the Patriots had

probably already analyzed the videos). Lawsuits were even filed against the Patriots by New

York Jets season ticket holders “requesting at least $184 million in damages” (Griver, 2011).

Although the claims were dismissed, the NFL was still prompted to take action against the

Patriots, even after destroying the tapes. This action came in the form of fining Coach Belichick

almost $500,000 and fining the Patriots as well. One could say that this was poorly handled by

the NFL, especially in the face of the general public which sought to see the tapes revealed so

that the claims against the Patriots could be more accurately assessed. But, because of this, the

Patriots (especially the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick duo) gained a reputation as a cheating team,

which is why the “Deflategate” scandal struck more harshly than the Spygate situation.

What had become different about the “Deflategate” case were the changes made in the

National Football league as well as the prior experience with the Spygate scandal. The NFL had

already started to become less lenient with misconducts on the field, and was now starting to

become stricter when dealing with off-field issues in the presence of social media. One off-field

problem which manifested on field was the alleged deflation of footballs before the AFC

Championship game between the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Quarterback Tom Brady might

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not have been necessarily involved at first, which would put the blame on the equipment

handlers of New England. Once the game started though, it would be clear to a professional

quarterback after just a few seconds of holding a football whether it has been illegally deflated or

not, as determined by Conan O’Brien’s interview of New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees

("Drew Brees On Deflategate - CONAN on TBS"). With most of the footballs illegally

underinflated, it would be difficult to say that Tom Brady was unaware of the issue during the

game. Soon after the game, the concept of “Deflategate” started to spread as “reports surfaced

that NFL is looking into the Patriots' use of "deflated footballs" in the AFC Championship Game

victory over the Colts.” It was then soon revealed to the media that the “NFL found that all 11

footballs used by the Patriots were underinflated” ("Tom Brady Suspension Timeline," 2015).

The initial reaction of the public was one of one general opinion: to suspend Tom Brady. This

was backed up when investigator Ted Wells reported that it was highly improbable that Tom

Brady had no knowledge of the deflated footballs during the game ("Tom Brady Suspension

Timeline," 2015). This reaction prompted the NFL to suspend the quarterback for four games,

which was even upheld after Brady appealed his suspension. But, a judge then nullified the four

game suspension after he decided that no player who cooperates with the investigation, whether

aware of the incident or not, should have the same punishment as a player who has used illegal

substances (Orr, 2015). The judge’s decision, although against popular opinion, did bring up the

problem of substance abuse in its relation to the NFL and did effectively shut down the media’s

disgust with Brady over something which could not have been as serious a problem as the use of

drugs or of domestic violence, both of which were becoming more prevalent in the NFL at the

time. In this, the media only seemed to have an initial effect in that it caused the suspension of

Brady after forcing Commissioner Goodell’s hand in the matter, but in fact builds a case against

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the New England quarterback through the popular opinion it expressed. Even in the fact that the

popular opinion lost in the case of Tom Brady, one can see that this media helped to shift the

attention to the problem of domestic violence in 2015, specifically in the case of Greg Hardy as it

compares to that of Ray Rice.

When observing the details involved in the cases of Ray Rice and Greg Hardy, one must

look at the “age” of each situation. That is because this age would determine the amount of

information that has been found about each situation. In the situation involving Ray Rice, the

case had been fully developed before the final outcome had happened. When dealing with the

Greg Hardy case, one could see that information is still in the process of getting discovered, and

the story is still developing today. Both situations involve domestic violence with both

professional players being the instigators. When Ray Rice was discovered to have beaten his

then-fiancée unconscious, he was suspended for two games by the NFL, which is customary for

a developing case involving domestic violence. But in the middle of his suspension, a video

surfaced on the media which involved visual evidence of Rice knocking out his fiancée while

waiting outside an elevator. When this video was released, Rice was released from the Baltimore

Ravens and suspended indefinitely (Rosenthal, 2014). There is a parallel involving former

Carolina defensive end Greg Hardy. Considering this case started developing after that of Ray

Rice, when initial reports arose involving details of Hardy’s prior arrest in 2014, the National

Football League took action almost immediately so that the public wouldn’t see it handling

Hardy in the same way that it handled Rice. Hardy was suspended for ten games, which was

eventually stricken down to four games, after which he came back to play. What differs is the

way the teams treated Rice and subsequently Hardy. Rice was released by his then-current team,

while Hardy was already a free agent, and Rice was then never picked up by a team, while Hardy

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was signed by the Dallas Cowboys decently early in the free agent season. While some people

speculate that the reason Hardy was picked up by a team rather quickly due to his high level of

skill (Bell, 2015), a major detail would be ignored, which is the presence of social media. In the

Ray Rice case, the video of the beating of his fiancée arose after his suspension, which caused

his suspension to become indefinite. In that way the spreading of that video through the media

caused an extension of his suspension. But in the situation involving Hardy, it could be argued

that the situation has not developed fully throughout the media. Only a few pictures of Hardy’s

girlfriend post-beating have been released into the media, and they have not given the NFL

enough incentive to take any action against the defensive end. One can ask if the NFL’s actions

would be the same as they took against Rice if a video of Hardy beating his girlfriend were to be

discovered. As of right now, the details of the domestic violence involving Hardy is not fully

known, and in the future there may be more information which prompts the NFL to act

differently than how it has acted so far.

Throughout the past decade, the social media has had a major impact on sports

organizations, and especially on the National Football League. The media has influenced the

actions which the NFL has taken through the past few years especially, almost forcing it to be

stricter toward all infractions, both on and off the field. The emphasis the media places on these

players is understandable, though. Football has been growing in popularity for the past few

decades, and part of that includes media coverage of these players, some of whom are idolized

by people. Exposing these idols and forcing the NFL to take a larger action against these faulted

people, in essence, forces them to conduct themselves in a better manner, hopefully making them

worthy of the praise that people, both adults and children, give them. And eventually, it could

make American football worth all the attention it gets today.

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Works Cited

Bell, Jarrett. "Hardy, Manziel need NFL's counseling." USA Today 30 Oct. 2015: 04C. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.

Clark, Kevin. "Judge Overturns Brady's 'Deflategate' Suspension." Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition ed.Sep 04 2015. ProQuest.Web. 20 Nov. 2015 .

Clark, Kevin. "NFL Takes Aim at Domestic Violence." Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition 29 Aug. 2014: A5. Print.

"Drew Brees On Deflategate - CONAN on TBS." YouTube. YouTube, 28 Jan. 2015. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.

Griver, Yoav M., and Daniel B. Garrie. "Wide world of sports risk: electronic discovery has become a major legal issue for all organizations. As we see through the NFL's Spygate scandal and the NBA's relocation of the SuperSonics from Seattle to Oklahoma City, professional sports leagues face unique challenges." Risk Management Apr. 2011: 30+. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.

Kim, Janine Young, and Matthew J. Parlow. "Off-court misbehavior: sports leagues and private punishment." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Summer 2009: 573+. LegalTrac. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Orr, Conor. "Judge Nullifies Tom Brady's Four-game Suspension." NFL.com. National Football League, 3 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.

Piquero, A. R., Piquero, N. L., Gertz, M., Baker, T., Batton, J. and Barnes, J. C. (2011), Race, Punishment, and the Michael Vick Experience. Social Science Quarterly, 92: 535–551. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00781.x

Raney, Arthur A, and Jennings Bryant. Handbook of Sports and Media. Mahwah, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2006. Print.

Rosenthal, Gregg. "Ray Rice Released by Ravens, Indefinitely Suspended."NFL.com. National Football League, 8 Sept. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.

"Social Media Needs to Act as a Platform for Social Change." University WireSep 23 2014. ProQuest. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.

"Tom Brady Suspension Timeline." NFL.com. National Football League, 3 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.

United States v. Vick 2007. Richmond, VA.