It’s sickening what the NFL will tolerate if you can blaze a 40-yard dash and score touchdowns.
“When you get the facts, then you make a decision about how it fits into our personal conduct policy. You don’t make a decision without having those facts.”
Those words were uttered by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell when responding to a recorded conversation where Kansas City Chiefs star receiver Tyreek Hill is talking with his fiancée, Crystal Espinal. In the audio recording, Espinal accuses Hill of abusing their 3-year-old son.
On Wednesday, the Johnson County District Attorney said charges would not be filed after police were called to Hill’s home twice last month and investigators determined the child had been injured. The D.A. said he believed a crime had occurred but that the evidence didn’t clearly establish who committed it.
But today, the D.A.’s office has reopened its criminal case on Hill, Chiefs coach Andy Reid said at a news conference.
After the audio was released on Thursday, the Chiefs announced that Hill had been barred indefinitely from all team activities.
“We were deeply disturbed by what we heard [on the recorded conversation],” general manager Brett Veach said Thursday. “We were deeply concerned. Now, obviously, we have great concern for Crystal. We are greatly concerned for Tyreek. But our main focus, our main concern, is with the young child.”
In the 11-minute audio file, Espinal discusses an injury to the child’s arm and tells Hill, “He is terrified of you.”
Hill’s response? “You need to be terrified of me, too, b—-.”
She goes on to talk about how Hill makes the child open his arms and punches him in the chest as a form of discipline.
The conversation was recorded as the couple walked through Dubai International Airport, according to KCTV. No date for the conversation was given.
Goodell said on Thursday that the league was still investigating.
The timing is sort of poetic justice for a league that sanctions violence, degenerative brain diseases and drug addiction among those who generate the billions of dollars for America’s greatest blood sport.
Thursday was supposed to kick off one of the NFL’s marquee events, its annual Draft extravaganza, where a select few lucky individuals become overnight millionaires and realize their life’s dream and ambition of becoming a pro football player.
Instead, the focus came right back on the inherent hypocrisy of what the league will tolerate if you can run a 4.2 in the 40-yard dash.
Because Goodell and the NFL can throw up as many smokescreens that they want in talking about their personal conduct policy and waiting to get the facts before making a decision.
But they had the hard facts on Hill years ago, and given what they knew, that crumb of a man should never been in the NFL in the first place.
In 2015, he pleaded guilty to domestic assault and battery by strangulation in an incident involving his then-pregnant girlfriend, the same woman who is now the mother of his child.
As a junior at Oklahoma State, Hill gained 1,811 all-purpose yards, none of them more celebrated than the 92-yard punt return that helped the Cowboys defeat of the Oklahoma Sooners in the Bedlam rivalry game.
But a week after that scamper, he was dismissed from the football and track teams after being arrested and charged with punching and choking his pregnant girlfriend.
This miscreant punched and choked his pregnant girlfriend!!! He punched her in the face and the stomach. So he’s been beating that child since he’s been in the womb.
It should have been a wrap right there.
The Chiefs general manager at the time, John Dorsey, along with NFL investigators knew that Hill pleaded guilty to domestic violence and was sentenced to three years’ probation for the felony after being charged with punching his pregnant girlfriend in the face and stomach and choking her. They knew that Oklahoma State kicked him to the curb.
But I guess Hill’s speed and football skills were a helluva narcotic.
When people questioned the Chiefs’ selection of Hill, Dorsey said, “I know that I would never put this community in any type of situation where it would not be good, and we’ve done that. I would like to ask for you guys to just have a little bit of trust in us in this thing.”
If you have half a brain, you learned long ago to never trust the NFL. They tossed their retired warriors into the trash heap while denying for decades what they knew about football causing CTE. They fought to limit settlement amounts that retired players sued for in order to get post-retirement medical coverage.
And they’ve willingly employed some of the worst elements of society for the sake of winning games.
Dorsey is now the GM of the resurgent Cleveland Browns. He wasted no time in signing Kareem Hunt, who was released by the Chiefs after video surfaced of him physically assaulting a woman.
He, and the NFL by extension can say whatever they want. But their actions prove how they really feel. They could give a rat’s ass about battered women and children. Because unless there’s video or audio evidence, they will continue to employ the Tyreek Hill’s of the world.
Hill should have never played a down in the NFL. It’s time for the league to kick him to the curb.
And while we’re at it, they can do the same to John Dorsey and everyone else like him.
