Is the NFL Becoming a Scapegoat?

Amid Jim Tressel resigning from Ohio State, (Yeah, it’s Ohio State. Not that stupid “THE” Ohio State.

Like there’s another one?) all the NCAA violations even being found in the heart-warming Boise State, and even the first over-all draft pick (Cam Newton) being rumored to have violations mucking up his path to the draft, I’m beginning to wonder if there will be a harsher SMU-like “death penalty” soon going out across all of college. Whenever analyst talk about transferring from the collegiate level to the professional level, it seems like all those bad memories seem to magically disappear like it never happened. Which really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because in the real world if you got money under the table and lied about it to the feds, they’d be all over you like butter on a biscuit and you’d be lucky if you didn’t get jail time, let alone get another job. Instead, college athletes do whatever they want, get away with it, if anything their college coach gets canned, and then they go on to the NFL, make millions of dollars and are adored by thousands of people.  Does this not sound ludicrous? Does this not beg the question of is the NFL becoming somewhat of a scapegoat for immature college kids who are trying to out run their skeletons in their closet?

Take Terrelle Pryor for an example. He sells his Big Ten Championship rings (What ever happened to giving those to your girl?) and jerseys to a tattoo shop and has been seen around campus driving a nice, expensive, new car almost monthly. Now there’s talk he’s going to enter the NFL’s supplemental draft to get rid of any consequences he would face if he were still a Buckeye next year. Should the NFL even stand for this? If a player could get into all this trouble seemingly broke as a student, imagine what he’ll do with the franchise’s millions in his hands?

Now some players who go into football just looking for a clean slate and deserve it. Jimmy Smith, who was the Ravens first round draft pick this year, is a great example.

He had multiple failed drug tests, admitted to being abusing codeine, and even abuse but for the past two years he’s been cleaner and quieter than a church mouse. Notice though, those things were all about Jimmy Smith were his personal short-falls. Instead, Pryor abused the NCAA system entirely with boosters and the cars and selling school awards (though personal) for his own gain. If I were a GM I wouldn’t even touch Pryor or players like him. Bad for the franchise, bad for your name, and bad for the locker room. Yeah you might win a few more games, but with all the mud you just been raked through, it isn’t going to be pretty.