Vincent Is Out Of His Mind

NFL Executive V.P. of Football Operations Troy Vincent is out of his mind. One of his responsibilities in the league offices is to hand out punishment like the 4-game suspension he gave to Tom Brady. So he's been in the news a lot lately. Off the field, the NFL has been a disaster in the past year. Roger Goodell has done little right and his Executive V.P. of  Football Operations has followed that example. Now Vincent is making it even worse by talking. He's complaining about the money spent by the NFL Players Association on legal action.

Here's some of what he had to say in an interview with ESPN.com's Ashley Fox:

"Look at the amount of money being spent on legal fees for a handful of people. It's millions and millions of dollars, and we've got players that are hurting. We've got young men who don't know how to identify a good financial adviser. Men are in transition who aren't doing well, and yet $8-10 million a year is spent in court fees about who should make a decision on someone, who in some cases has committed a crime. Think about that logically. Wouldn't it be better to spend our time and resources on the issues that are vital to our players -- past, present and future -- such as the players' total wellness and growing the game together?"

Where do we start? First of all, the NFL and the NFLPA are making the very same legal appearances. So, the NFL is also spending "millions and millions of dollars" on legal actions. The NFL even tossed about $5 million at Ted Wells for a thoroughly incompetent investigation into that little football inflation/deflation issue. With legal costs in mind, no one even remotely connected to the NFL should be complaining about a single dollar spent by the NFLPA. The main reason for the frequent court visits in the past year has been the NFL's erratic handling of punishments. From Ray Rice's ludicrous 2-game suspension to Adrian Peterson's nearly full-year banishment, the punishments have been random and often outside the guidelines set by the recent Collective Bargaining Agreement. Vincent, himself, even brought about a couple of court visits by telling Peterson that his time spent on the Commissioner's Exempt List would be accepted as time served. Besides lying, he had no authority to do so. Second of all, Vincent is ignoring history when he suggests that the NFLPA would be better served by spending the "millions and millions of dollars" on better care for retired players. He is right in the sense that the retired players do deserve better care but that better care is needed because the NFL refused to care for them at all since 1920.

Troy Vincent truly is out of his mind. He's a former player. He even served as president of the NFLPA from 2004 to 2008. He even ran against DeMaurice Smith for the executive director role in 2009. I thought that it was a great thing to have a former player that was very active in the NFLPA sitting in an NFL office. A person that had been very involved in all matters on the other side of the fence. Looks like I was wrong. Looks like Troy Vincent has forgotten all about those days on the other side of the fence. The NFLPA is there for the concerns and issues of the players. It's as simple as that. The frequency of the court visits is due to the stupid shit that players are doing off-the-field. That's on them and has to stop. It's made even worse by the NFL's completely random discipline. There's no logic or consistency. The NFL has been a train wreck for about a year. That's on Goodell. And Vincent. The NFL and the NFLPA are spending "millions and millions of dollars" because some players keep doing stupid shit and the NFL doesn't have a clue as to how to deal with it. Vincent should be looking into the disaster in his own building rather than bitching about how the other side is spending money.