The NFL's 'New' Personal Conduct Policy Is a Bad Joke

In a textbook Friday news dump, the NFL announced at 5:16 PM that "third-party arbitrator" Harold Henderson had upheld Adrian Peterson's suspension for the remainder of the season. This decision is a not a surprise, given that Henderson is not a third party; he is a former league executive and current NFL legal consultant.

Amazingly, this is just the beginning of the doublespeak on display. Henderson was, in part, tasked with determining if Peterson was punished under the "old" personal conduct policy—the policy was re-issued to players in June—or the "new" personal conduct policy Goodell announced on August 28, which, in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal, vowed harsher punishments for a select few heinous crimes such as domestic violence and sexual assault.

Henderson's ruling is, if nothing else, tragically contradictory to the entire image the NFL has been attempting to project over the past few months. In his ruling, Henderson asserted the August 28 memo wasn't a change in the personal conduct policy at all, writing, "…the August communications do not constitute a change of the June 1, 2014 policy, but rather reinforce that policy with initiatives to explain and enhance it." Surely, this comes as news to the millions of people clamoring for the NFL to change its policies in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal.

The really depressing thing is that Henderson is technically correct. The key part of the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy reads:

"The specifics of the disciplinary response will be based on the nature of the incident, the actual or threatened risk to the participant and others, any prior or additional misconduct (whether or not criminal charges were filed), and other relevant factors."

Short version: Goodell can do whatever he wants, including punishing a select few crimes people seem to be particularly angry about at any given time.

Henderson didn't use the word "enhance" by accident. In the August 28 memo, Goodell adopted a turn of phrase from, of all places, the CIA, writing that he would use "enhanced discipline" for "assault, battery, domestic violence and sexual assault that involve physical force." This, of course, is a direct descendant of the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" phrasing, which we now know really meant shoving a tube up someone's ass and pumping mush into their rectums. Everything you need to know about the NFL can be summarized by the fact that they thought it was a good idea to borrow a phrase from the CIA's torture propaganda.

Henderson argued that this "enhanced discipline" is no change from the original policy because it was always up to the commissioner what punishment to enact. In a total perversion of anything resembling a justice system or basic logic, there is literally no punishment that would be a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy, since the only necessary condition of the punishment is that Goodell decides it.

In the same way that a car can be driven wherever the driver chooses, the Personal Conduct Policy is designed so Goodell can punish whoever he wants however severely he desires. If you've never read the official version of the Personal Conduct Policy, the NFL makes it abundantly clear from the opening section that the policy is designed for one thing; to assuage the public:

"Illegal or irresponsible conduct does more than simply tarnish the offender. It puts innocent people at risk, sullies the reputation of others involved in the game, and undermines public respect and support for the NFL."

It is neither the NFL's job nor place to ensure innocent people are safe; we have a (flawed) justice system for that. The other two stated reasons for the policy's existence are right there in plain English: public respect and support.

The problem with this is that We The People are a fickle, unpredictable bunch. Americans are still trying to come to anything resembling a consensus on fairly basic things, such as whether or not half of our population is systematically targeted by the other half and when we can('t) kill each other. This societal bickering applies to domestic violence: the 80 or so NFL players arrested for domestic violence prior to Ray Rice were not greeted with national vitriol, to say the least. Most of their arrests went unmentioned by non-sports national media outlets.

To many observers, a backlash similar to the Rice situation was wholly predictable. Eventually, a player was going to be caught on video and people wouldn't be able to ignore the abject and frequent brutality any longer. But to the NFL, the conduct policy's vaguaries are purposely written so they can react to what they believe to be unpredictable fluctuations in public sympathies. You can just imagine Goodell's dejected perplexity: why do people suddenly care about this?

When the NFL's rules don't allow for such flexibility, the league will blatantly ignore them if it makes for bad public relations. Last week, several NFL players, including Detroit Lions running back Reggie Bush, wrote "I Can't Breathe" on official NFL t-shirts during pregame warm-ups in support of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man killed by a police officer who was then let off scot-free by a grand jury. St. Louis Ram Davin Joseph wrote "I Can't Breathe" and "RIP Eric Garner" on his game cleats. These statements are in clear violation of the NFL's Rulebook, which states, under the section titled "Personal Messages":

Throughout the period on game-day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warm-ups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field), players are prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office…The League will not grant permission for any club or player to wear, display, or otherwise convey messages…which relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns. Further, any such approved items must be modest in size, tasteful, non-commercial, and non-controversial…" [Emphasis added]

This could not possibly be any clearer. The Garner messages, which were visible to broadcast audiences, were of a controversial, political nature. (It is painful to qualify the nature of Garner's death as "controversial", but society has deemed it as such.) Yet, the NFL opted not to fine any of the players. In the past, the NFL has fined players five figures for wearing white cleats, low socks, and donning a gladiator helmet during pregame introductions, all violations of the NFL's uniform policy. (The NFL did not reply to a request for clarification on why no fines were levied.)

I want to be perfectly clear: I'm glad these players weren't fined. But, it's just another example of the NFL having it both ways with their rules, demanding players adhere to the letter of the law when it works in their favor and ignoring the rules entirely when it works best for the League. The NFL refuses to be consistent while slavishly responding to the public's incessant clamors.

This may sound good in theory—turning an amoral entity into a moral one—but it has unintended consequences. The reason Goodell can only approximate human principles is because he is a giant mirror onto which America's values are reflected, which in themselves are jumbled and inconsistent. The NFL's only principle is to have none so that it can adopt whatever is necessary to maintain its image. This leads to no real substantive change until the public can agree on it—which is to say, rarely.

Last week, the NFL finally unveiled a "new" Personal Conduct Policy—it says "NEW PERSONAL CONDUCT POLICY" in giant letters across the top. Among the changes: nine owners will comprise an NFL Conduct Committee, which will review the policy annually—this has more or less always been true, although ad hoc—and the appeals process will include an "NFL Expert Panel Hearing," which will include "three outside experts to make recommendations to the Commissioner or his designee on an appeal ruling that will be decided by the Commissioner or his designee." Again, the punishment and appeal are still solely the commissioner's decision.

So what has changed, exactly?

"Violations involving assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault will result in a baseline six-game suspension without pay, with more if aggravating factors are present, such as the use of a weapon or a crime against a child. A second offense will result in banishment from the NFL."

If that paragraph sounds familiar, that's because it's virtually identical to the new—or, depending on who we're listening to, old—parameters laid out in Goodell's August 28 memo, the one that was an "enhancement and refinement" of the original Personal Conduct Policy.

As far as I can tell, the biggest change in the Personal Conduct Policy is the format. The old policy was a legal document. The new one is a flowchart.

The NFL thinks the problem was that we couldn't understand the old policy, so it made it prettier and called it "new." This is what the NFL thinks of your outrage. This is how the NFL believes problems can be solved, which is why we need to stop asking the NFL to take a role in fixing anything. It can't even fix itself.