Professional football players are some of the world’s greatest athletes–no doubt. 

There is also no doubt that being a professional athlete also comes with its fair share of wealth and ego–an often deadly mixture. 

So, for a professional athlete — already an exclusive class — to be playing in the even more exclusive NFL, there is always the risk of entitlement and abuse. 

Football is a violent game. 

For professional football players, there may even be something of a catharsis in violent play on the field, but the overwhelming issue of NFL players being involved in violence off the field has, for the most part, been generally accepted. 

Kareem Hunt, who will be the starting running back for the Kansas Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, was arrested in 2018 for domestic battery.

A security video depicted Hunt kicking and shoving a woman outside his house. 

Despite this, Hunt is paid over $1 million to play for the NFL’s most prominent team. 

Baltimore Ravens place kicker Justin Tucker has had eight massage therapists accuse him of sexual misconduct across several spas in the Baltimore area. 

Tucker is widely considered to be the best kicker in the NFL and currently holds the NFL record for longest-made kick at 66 yards. 

Tucker is currently in the middle of a $24 million contract. 

Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson had to settle over 24 sexual assault civil suits across 2022-23 and was suspended 11 games by the NFL.

Despite this, Watson signed a guaranteed $230 million contract with the Browns in 2022. 

A man with that much baggage is paid more than Super Bowl quarterbacks like Brock Purdy and Jalen Hurts.

So what does it say about a league with a predominantly young male audience to have players who are being arrested for crimes against women?

In our current political climate, the autonomous rights of women have been in a state of flux. 

Our president has his own extremely sketchy past with women and has demonstrated that his associates and allies aren’t much better. 

Therefore, in a political sense, many young men have already been indoctrinated to believe that they own the rights to women and their bodies.  

So when this country’s most popular sports league has also demonstrated that violence against women — both physical and sexual — is small potatoes, what does that say about our culture? 

The NFL is, in many ways, a microcosm of the United States. 

It’s pristine and complex. It is unrelenting and driven by an insatiable desire to generate a profit. Those who follow it are enthralled by its product. Football is addictive and those who consume it can’t get enough of it. 

But underneath, its problems continue to fester.

Concussions are destroying NFL players’ brains.

Its stars are committing illicit acts in hotel rooms, spas and nightclubs. 

Yet, even if it is acknowledged, the league is able to have an incredibly short memory. 

This behavior has been very rarely punished and in some cases, rewarded with massive contracts. 

In the neo-corporate era, this country is at a crossroads between deciding if monetary gain or conventional morality is more valuable as a cultural touchstone. 

The same can be said for the NFL. 

Is it impossible for a violent sport to have players who can separate their professional and personal lives? 

In a culture where women’s bodies have been thrown around in both legislative arguments and domestic households, it does no good to have its most popular sports league demonstrate that those behaviors are not only acceptable but rewarded.