Professional Football Researchers Association Forum
PFRA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history of professional football. Formed in 1979, PFRA members include many of the game's foremost historians and writers.
sluggermatt15 wrote:@Rupert Patrick - I think James Conner replacing Le'Veon Bell is an example of giving a guy an opportunity, they can take advantage of it. So why not think Ware can fill in for Hunt? Ware will be more involved in the gameplan, he'll get the practice reps, and his teammates will have to confide in him. So I don't think this quashes KC's hopes of homefield or even a run in the playoffs. They still have a dangerous offense, an experienced coach, and a defense who is capable of making plays, especially if Eric Berry returns.
I'd love to see the Chiefs rebound from this and go all the way, this will be interesting to see. I am a huge Andy Reid fan and would love to see him get a ring; I think a Lombardi Trophy would pretty much put him into the HOF. This is the best Chiefs team since at least 1997 and I hope they can replace Hunt and his 14 TD's and keep focused on the game and not on the fracas surrounding the video. The game against Oakland today will tell us a lot.
One of the fascinating things about every football season is that we're going to see at least a dozen things (for better or worse) that we've never seen before, or we never saw coming, and this is one of them. We cannot tolerate abusive people in society, there has to be a system of punishment in order to show them the error of their ways and to serve as a deterrent to others. This incident should have been caught and suspension handed out ten months ago and I am sure the NFL will learn from this so they are not blindsided by another TMZ video in the future.
"Every time you lose, you die a little bit. You die inside. Not all your organs, maybe just your liver." - George Allen
Rupert Patrick wrote:I worry that some of it is due to what I classified years ago as the OJ syndrome. I first came up with this while watching the OJ trial where his entire life story unfolded, and I am treading into thin ice here. What I am saying is that for many of these young athletes who come from nothing (from many different sports), as soon as it was realized in high school that they could run well with a football or play basketball well, they were suddenly provided with many things with no strings attached, such as a free college education and in some cases having other people taking exams in their behalf, having teachers pressured to pass them in classes because "we really need him on the team," free cars and women for themselves and money for their families in order to attend certain colleges (this one is going thru the court system as we speak, but it's probably been going on a lot and somebody finally got caught).
Anyway, whenever these young men get to the pros, they suddenly have an unlimited supply of money, beyond their wildest dreams, and many of them do a poor job in managing it (I recommend the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "Broke" if you haven't seen it), but it buys them everything, until somebody says "No." Once they hear the word "No", which is a word they haven't heard in years, they don't know how to deal with it. Kareem Hunt reached that point in the hotel in February.
Which brings us back to OJ. Once he proved he could run fast with a football, he ran all the way to USC and then to Buffalo, and got everything he ever wanted. When Nicole told him "No", he hadn't heard that word in a couple decades, and he went berserk.
I recently went back and re-watched that excellent 90's documentary "Hoop Dreams" with the two young Chicago teens who were very good basketball players and were trying to use their talent to get out of the ghettos. There was a scene where one of the two kids (or maybe both of them) received brand new official NBA jackets (which cost well over 100 bucks) courtesy of the local drug dealer. These kids kept their noses clean and weren't involved in drugs, but the drug dealer bought these for the kids because in the off chance either of these kids made it to the NBA (and both of them were amongst the top high school basketball players in Chicago), they were going to owe him.
I'm not being racist, as I grew up lower middle class and was in poverty for a couple years growing up myself, but I believe if you grow up with nothing, and suddenly are given everything, you can reach a point where you can snap when you are told there is something your money or all the money in the world cannot buy.
Rupert another interesting show to watch regarding these kinds of things is 'Last Chance U' on netflix.
It shows how ill prepared some of these college/future nfll stars are for life. They can handle things on the football field just fine in a lot of cases but dealing with their personal lives is a whole different matter.
lastcat3 wrote:Rupert another interesting show to watch regarding these kinds of things is 'Last Chance U' on netflix.
It shows how ill prepared some of these college/future nfll stars are for life. They can handle things on the football field just fine in a lot of cases but dealing with their personal lives is a whole different matter.
I will check that out. Of course I highly recommend the ESPN documentary "Broke", which is available to rent on the Youtube. I think the most fascinating part is when they were interviewing I believe ESPN commentator Gary Danielson, who said he knew something was wrong with his spending when he realized he owned 38 cellphones! Also worth viewing is Herman Edwards, who gives NFL rookies the speech about how they only need ONE house, and ONE car, and ONE piece of jewelry.
"Every time you lose, you die a little bit. You die inside. Not all your organs, maybe just your liver." - George Allen
Rupert Patrick wrote:I worry that some of it is due to what I classified years ago as the OJ syndrome. I first came up with this while watching the OJ trial where his entire life story unfolded, and I am treading into thin ice here. What I am saying is that for many of these young athletes who come from nothing (from many different sports), as soon as it was realized in high school that they could run well with a football or play basketball well, they were suddenly provided with many things with no strings attached, such as a free college education and in some cases having other people taking exams in their behalf, having teachers pressured to pass them in classes because "we really need him on the team," free cars and women for themselves and money for their families in order to attend certain colleges (this one is going thru the court system as we speak, but it's probably been going on a lot and somebody finally got caught).
Anyway, whenever these young men get to the pros, they suddenly have an unlimited supply of money, beyond their wildest dreams, and many of them do a poor job in managing it (I recommend the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "Broke" if you haven't seen it), but it buys them everything, until somebody says "No." Once they hear the word "No", which is a word they haven't heard in years, they don't know how to deal with it. Kareem Hunt reached that point in the hotel in February.
Which brings us back to OJ. Once he proved he could run fast with a football, he ran all the way to USC and then to Buffalo, and got everything he ever wanted. When Nicole told him "No", he hadn't heard that word in a couple decades, and he went berserk.
I recently went back and re-watched that excellent 90's documentary "Hoop Dreams" with the two young Chicago teens who were very good basketball players and were trying to use their talent to get out of the ghettos. There was a scene where one of the two kids (or maybe both of them) received brand new official NBA jackets (which cost well over 100 bucks) courtesy of the local drug dealer. These kids kept their noses clean and weren't involved in drugs, but the drug dealer bought these for the kids because in the off chance either of these kids made it to the NBA (and both of them were amongst the top high school basketball players in Chicago), they were going to owe him.
I'm not being racist, as I grew up lower middle class and was in poverty for a couple years growing up myself, but I believe if you grow up with nothing, and suddenly are given everything, you can reach a point where you can snap when you are told there is something your money or all the money in the world cannot buy.
I agree with some of your reply but I don't think the privileged athlete is the only contributing factor. Again not wanting to wander to far out on a limb but many times abuse is passed down generation to generation. Obviously I have no clue about Kareem Hunt's upbringing. Also another contributing factor is how much alcohol did he consume? Not an excuse but it may explain the behavior.
lastcat3 wrote:Just saw the footage of the incident......and...….wow......that woman could have been killed the way she was pushed against that wall. This is a tough situation because though the nfl wants their players to be model citizens at the same time they are getting the majority of their talent from people who grew up in very violent areas of the country.
The problem in this analysis with respect to Hunt is that he didn't grow up in a violent area. He grew up in suburban Cleveland in a largely white community, where he never had any issues during his high school days. I know he did get suspended for the first two games of 2015 with Toledo for "violation of teams rules," but otherwise has had no other issues prior to this year. He obviously needs to grow up and deal with this issue. He could start by donating money to a DV shelter and speaking to schools to show the remorse that he said he felt during his ESPN interview. Hopefully, this is the only wakeup call he needs.
lastcat3 wrote:So educate.....educate.....and educate. Maybe the nfl even needs to set up programs to educate kids when they are really young regardless of rather they ever make it to the league or not. For some if they wait until they get into the league to start educating them it is already too late.
I don't think the NFL can 'educate' morality even if they wanted to, and I'm not sure that should even be their role.
The "education" by the NFL would be to have a zero tolerance policy, which the players would know of beforehand and understand that they won't be getting any second chances. That currently isn't the case, and I guess we could debate if that would be the appropriate way to handle things anyways.
Its interesting to me how the public was outraged with Goodell's handling of Ray Rice, but were fine with how the actual US legal system handled it. And the only reason that Ray Rice's career ended was because he was averaging 3.6 yards per touch...I'm guessing that Kareem Hunt will be playing NFL football next year because he is so good. He'll serve his time, then be back in the league. The NFL is a violent league populated with some violent people. I've made my peace with that fact.
John Grasso wrote:Do we know what prompted Hunt to act the way he did?
I often wonder in situations like these whether one of us would
have reacted in a similar way given the same circumstances.
If you watch the video you can clearly see that both Hunt and the lady involved were wasted. My guess is that they had been partying together.....maybe sleeping together. And a combination of alcohol, potentially some drugs, and them likely being angry at eachother prompted the incident.
If you watch the video you can clearly see that both Hunt and the lady involved were wasted. My guess is that they had been partying together.....maybe sleeping together. And a combination of alcohol, potentially some drugs, and them likely being angry at eachother prompted the incident.[/quote]
Sounds like a few married couples my wife and I have known and oddly enough as far as I know no violence.....maybe a divorce but no hitting or kicking
JKelly wrote:Sounds like a few married couples my wife and I have known and oddly enough as far as I know no violence.....maybe a divorce but no hitting or kicking
True. But they are probably a little older, and a lot more grown up and mature than these two were. Hunt is 23 and I would imagine the girl is in her late teens or early twenties.
