NFL Needs To Step It Up Even More

Vince Young, who if you read ESPN the Magazine (I'm a subscriber) seemed to really turn it around.  The article was all about how is going to be a leader in the locker room with the loss of many veteran players.  He is having a kid, and all of last season we saw that he was turning it around.

Then the nightclub incident.  Another athlete was in a club and got in trouble.  You see a trend?  Young was caught on tape in a scuffle, because he felt disrespected.  Really?  Disrespected?  What are you four?  You walk away and leave the person looking dumb.  You know whats really disrespectful?  Missing the entire season of your underwhelming career because some guy made fun of your University.  I know VY has had a rough go, losing his mentor and being benched, only to see Kerry Collins lead the team to glory.  But he should have learned from this, which he did not.

We all know about Roethlisberger too.  I'm not going to say whether he did it or not.  My point is that he didn't learn from his past mistakes.  He should have seen he avoided a big bullet with his first accusation, and been a hermit for a while.  But he went to party with college kids and bad things happened. 

Donte Stallworth killed a guy and is playing after a year off.  Michael Vick was in dogfighting and got two and a half years in jail. 

Now, I think players should get second chances, and I don't really mind if teams still want to sign them and they keep playing after a third or fourth chance.  But the punishments have to get tougher or the league will quickly get worse, with players getting in more trouble.  I really don't want my favorite league to be run by felons.

First offense can be lighter than the second punishment.  Everybody makes mistakes, and you are a pro athlete with a target on your back.  After that, its on you.  Big Ben could miss 4 games this season, the same as if he smoked marijuana and failed a test.  That doesn't make sense to me at all.  We should see more year suspensions and after two or three of these guys mess up, people will get the point.  For every Drew Brees, we get a Ben Roethlisberger.  For every Michael Strahan, we get a Vince Young.  The NFL needs to get on this now, and continue there efforts to make this league the best in the world.