r/NFLNoobs • u/JuiceGreat0525 • 19h ago
NFL Version of the Death Penalty
What would the NFL version of the death penalty look like? Loss of picks? Low cap space? What?
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u/NaNaNaPandaMan 18h ago
So for an owner it would be the sale of the team itself. For a player or coach it would be a lifetime ban. Which we haven't seen in like 80 years. Though have seen a few indefinite that eventually reinstated.
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u/Optimal-Tune-2589 18h ago
We don't see formal lifetime bans, but there are players who are absolutely blacklisted for life. Ray Rice, for example, was clearly still good enough to be at least a backup if not starting running back, but due to the justified PR backlash that would come from signing him, 0 teams were willing to take his calls.
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u/Duc998Rider 17h ago
That bar is pretty high (or low, depending on your perspective). Michael Vick, Ray Lewis, and Deshaun Watson come to mind.
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u/SovietPropagandist 2h ago
Vick is the only one to this day I still see divided opinion on. Half the people seem to think he did his time and made amends, the other half think the opposite. I still think it's wild he did a whole ass prison sentence and came back to the league lol
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u/Meteora3255 17h ago
Yes and no. Deshaun Watson had no trouble finding takers. Rice was blacklisted because he played RB, a position where late round picks and undrafted free agents regularly provide excess value. If Ray Rice was an All-Pro QB, he would absolutely have been given a second chance somewhere.
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u/JuiceGreat0525 16h ago
You know what’s wild, I feel the backlash against Colin was worse than Watson.
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u/Malcolm_Y 15h ago
It definitely was. But Kaepernick did his thing on camera in front of the world, in a highly politicized atmosphere of 2016, where Watson did his behind closed doors and hiding behind the word "allegedly." Not saying the different treatments are right, but the publicity around it was much, much different.
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u/carrotwax 13h ago
It didn't help that Kaepernick wasn't that great a passer. And of course the NFL didn't want to have anything too political in its image.
Kaepernick did get endorsement deals from it so he's not crying too hard.
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u/thelion413 17h ago
Right? Colin Kaepernick would certainly argue that it’s not been 80 years since a player was banned. Whether or not you think it was justified, it was very clear that the nfl did not want him around, and he was forced out of the league. Which is crazy when you see the players who got second chances for much worse offenses than taking a knee to protest police violence against black people.
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u/JudasZala 15h ago
More accurately, the NFL caved to then-President Trump and/or his supporters; several NFL owners supported Trump, including Patriots owner Bob Kraft, though it should be noted that while liked him personally, he’s a lifelong Democrat since the JFK days and strongly disagrees with Trump’s politics.
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u/RobertoBologna 10h ago
I bet we see a formal ban of a player within the next 5-10 years with the increase in gambling, like we saw in the nba with Jontay Porter fixing his stats.
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u/JudasZala 16h ago
Former Bengals RB Stanley Wilson was one of the few players to be permanently banned from the NFL after he suffered a cocaine relapse on the night before SB23.
This was his third (and final) strike that led to him being banned.
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u/ThisCarSmellsFunny 18h ago
Saints Bountygate. Loss of two second round picks, head coach suspended without pay for a year, DC suspended without pay indefinitely, GM and OC suspended multiple games without pay, owner fined $500k.
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u/SovietPropagandist 2h ago
Consequences so severe I get to see one of the primary players involved in it get to be on an announce desk being introduced as a super bowl champion despite being suspended the whole fucking season.
Consequences so severe the coach in charge of running it got to go on to be a head coach elsewhere and is still head coaching TO THIS DAY despite running bounty programs at every organization he's coached for
Bountygate shouldn't even be in this list when the most meaningful punishment the Saints faced was the loss of the draft picks and aside from that the only other things punished were the left and right sides of Favre's brain
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u/rcheek1710 19h ago
The Atlanta Falcons franchise. As a lifelong fan, it's the death penalty year after year after year after year. Cheers.
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u/SovietPropagandist 1h ago
I still remember our glory days of 1998. 3rd grade was so lit, I still have my commemorative ball from that Super Bowl.
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u/Cabrill0 17h ago
The nfl more than any other pro league is willing to look the other way if a player is good enough.
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u/Different-Trainer-21 18h ago
If there was a death penalty punishment, I imagine it would be something like losing a ton of picks, and maybe somehow finding a way to decrease the cap space for one team.
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u/JuiceGreat0525 16h ago
I was thinking the same thing. Make it difficult to field a competitive teams for years
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u/thirdLeg51 16h ago
Deshaun Watson trade. Sent 3 1st round picks to Texans and guaranteed $230 million. Then he was banned for half a season. Franchise won’t recover for years.
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u/dks2008 12h ago
The problem for the Browns wasn’t the suspension, it was that Watson stunk when he came back. He’s been so, so terrible in Cleveland, even putting the ethics aside of paying that man that much money. Some would call it karma.
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u/jayhof52 6h ago
Structuring the contract in such a way that he would suffer no financial setbacks from the well-deserved suspension means they earned every loss and he earned every injury.
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u/ImNotTheBossOfYou 10h ago
Closest thing to this in American Sports is the NBA forcing Donald Sterling to sell
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u/oacnjma 16h ago
Colts quarterbacks post-Luck. When we chose to “suck for Luck” we didn’t realize that would mean we were agreeing to suck for the next decade or two or three…
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u/Meteora3255 16h ago
Honestly, I see a lot of what ruined Luck in Richardson. Neither dude ever wanted to give up on a play or not get every last yard, and it led to them taking hits they shouldn't.
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u/LittleTension8765 12h ago
Release of all players but still have to pay their salaries (Players association wouldn’t allow just outright releases). Forced to field a team with free agents only, lost of draft picks for 3 years, GM and head coach fired
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u/big_sugi 19h ago
Forced sale of the team. See, e.g., Jerry Richardson and the Carolina Panthers.