New England Feels Dallas' Pain. (But Not Really.)
Cowboys’ RB Ezekiel Elliott is being suspended 6 games, per source.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 11, 2017
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Well this was kind of unexpected, but we had every reason to expect it. To a person the Cowboys, from Jerry Jones on down, have said they had all the confidence in the world Roger Goodell wasn’t going to suspend Elliot. They didn’t even dodge the question or say it’s out of their hands. Just flat out said it wasn’t going to happen. But they should have.
Because if we’ve learned anything over the last five years or so, it’s that justice NFL style is not about justice. It’s about growing the Commissioner’s power. Ray Rice is clearly guilty of knocking his fiancee out cold? Well the Commissar has to protect the business interests of his Augusta National golf buddy, Steve Bisciotti, so Rice walks. There’s a major outcry around the country so he responds with this phony baloney automatic six game punishment for domestic violence. But he’s avoided using it a dozen times. Like when Josh Brown of the Giants had to have his family brought to an undisclosed location by NFL Security for protection from that monster, and Goodell gave him one game to placate his pal John Mara.
Now Ezekiel Elliot gets the book thrown at him for an alleged incident that the police looked into and didn’t press charges. And happened before he was even in the league. The kicker is, that there’s not a decent human being among us who wouldn’t give a heartfelt 1980s movie slow clap for a six game suspension for a real wife beater. But why Elliot? Why his situation, when he was cleared by the cops? And why the Cowboys, given that Jerry Jones did everything short of wave pom poms and do the “Gimme an R! Gimme an O! Gimme a G! …” when Goodell was sticking it to the Patriots?
I have no idea. It makes no logical sense. But this is exactly the kind of thing Pats fans were warning the rest of America about when they were on this power-mad, totalitarian despot’s side during Deflategate. You were handing him absolute power and happy when he used it against the Patriots. But you also have to pray he doesn’t turn it on you because you’re powerless to stop him. You waived Article 46 in our faces and now that it’s being used to take away the latest Cowboy superstar, it’s not so much fun, is it? There’s an old saying that if you give all the power in the world to Caesar because you trust Caesar, you’d better get ready for when all that power is in the hands of Caligula.
So I’m sorry for Cowboys fans. And their team. But not really sorry. You were desperate to stop the Patriots. And in your desperation, you turned to a man you did not fully understand. And on behalf of New England, we told you so.