Guess who's back?

I must thank the Baltimore Ravens for providing me with the topic for this post. Although there certainly isn’t a shortage of issues to talk about, I haven’t really felt compelled to write about anything recently. With the Winter Olympics underway, I hope to write down a few opinions on these events in the coming days. I’ve made similar promises before, so don’t hold your breath waiting for my next entry.

Anyway, about these Ravens…

Like most ridiculous stories, it is often times difficult to decide where to begin. With all of their current stable of wide receivers headed for free agency, the Ravens apparently thought their position was so dire that they needed to go out and start signing convicted criminals. Enter Donte Stallworth. In case you are unaware, Stallworth pleaded guilty to DUI vehicular manslaughter in which he killed a Miami construction worker after a night of drinking. He did all of this about a year after signing a mega-deal with the Cleveland Browns. You can check out all of the details related to his court sentence and the subsequent one-year suspension that was levied by the NFL here.

While it is embarrassing enough for the pathetic legal system that only sentenced him to 30 days in jail (of which he served only 24 days) to be shown up by the NFL and their not-as-limp-wristed-but-still-pretty-lame year-long suspension, for any team to immediately sign this guy is another awful twist in an already pitiful exhibition. I wonder what horrifying atrocities a player needs to commit in order to receive a lifetime ban from the NFL or, at the very least, for teams to not jump at the first chance to sign them?

One of the things that came to mind for me will be to see what kind of a public outcry there will be against the Ravens for signing Stallworth and against Stallworth himself in comparison to Michael Vick. I won’t get into the debate about whether torturing and killing dogs is worse than getting liquored up and running over a human being – I’ll leave that up to my sophisticated readership to figure out on their own. At the very least, there should be some sort of equal public displeasure with this particular personnel decision by the Ravens. Unfortunately, I doubt we will see the same sort of fanatical protests for the Ravens and Stallworth as was seen for the Eagles and Vick. We can already see that it wasn’t as hard or as long a process for Stallworth to find a new job as it was for Vick.

Beyond the Vick comparisons, I am just ashamed of my hometown team for feeling it necessary to immediately sign this guy. Winning is nice, but at what cost? And sure, I am in favor of everyone getting a second chance. Unfortunately, not everyone gets a second chance. It appears that second chances are primarily reserved only for the very gifted or the well-connected among us. Dose anyone out there believe that the initial punishment or the ability to receive a second chance in his profession is anything close to the type of treatment that any normal citizen would receive?

Further, when looking at second chances and athletes, the staggering amount of money they make to play a game makes it even worse. Typically, I don’t have any problem with athletes' high-dollar contracts. If you are among the top performers in your profession, I believe that you should be rewarded as such. Although Stallworth is set to make a fraction of the total value of his old contract with the Browns (now having since been made into confetti), he is still set to make $900,000 for one year of work, plus incentives that could add up to an additional $300,000. There should be a different set of salary rules for criminals who are allowed to re-enter the league – especially for people who plead guilty to manslaughter (like Stallworth).

Maybe I’m just being stupid, but I will find it very difficult to cheer for this guy.