"National Felons League" - Uncovering the crime epidemic in the NFL

When you are in the public eye, you are held to a higher standard than the rest of us, whether you like it or not. You are lifted up onto a pedestal, and while you are up there, you are exposed so that everyone can see you. That makes it your responsibility to set a good example. And for sports stars, and NFL players in particular, that holds especially true because it isn’t just adults watching you. The moment you put on an NFL jersey, you are a role-model to kids all over the world. That’s a part of the job, and it isn’t optional.

The NFL needs to wake up and stop living in denial. There is a crime problem, and statistics have nothing to do with it. The public don’t crunch numbers and compare them to national averages to form their opinions; they do it on a whim based on what they saturate from the media.

Players at colleges like Michigan play in front of crowds larger than any found at even a European Soccer match, and are idolised on campus by almost everyone they meet

And what they see is that for every humble, clean-cut Russell Wilson or Andrew Luck who represents everything good in the league, there is a Titus Young or an Aaron Hernandez being dragged out on the evening news in handcuffs. That is what the kids are seeing, and that is what has to be eliminated from the sport.

To know how to eliminate the problem, you first need to know what the problem is and from where it originates. In this instance, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what causes so many NFL players to rebel and turn to crime.

Some people think it is about having money. After all, NFL franchises are in the business of taking talented kids, often from poor and underprivileged communities, and making them instant millionaires. Obviously, there is an inherent risk involved with doing that.

A lot of these kids have lived without money their whole lives, and all of a sudden they can afford a Lamborghini without even breaking a sweat. That has an effect. Suddenly these young men want to party and show off, and that often means that they’re probably going to put themselves in a bad situation once or twice.

However, money isn’t the only catalyst for their troubles. Fame also plays a crucial part. In American high schools, players are coddled and babied with preferential treatment as soon as they begin showing athletic promise on the field. They then move on to college, where they are idolised on campus and treated like untouchable royalty.

No wonder they begin to think that they are above the rules. If you tell someone they are God long enough, eventually they’ll begin to believe it. By the time they get to the pros it is ingrained in their minds, and at that point they have both the ego and the money to think they can get away with things.