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Tristan Connors
Dr. McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric
November 23, 2015
The Relationship Between Social Media and NFL Actions
In the past decade, American football has become seemingly identifiable with American
culture. Certain persons could be identified by the football team they like. Some professional
football players may even be known throughout America not for their skill in the sport, but for
their ventures into other enterprises such as modelling and advertisement. It has truly become
popular across the entire country, but so have the issues concerning the different organizations
which run professional American football leagues, specifically the National Football League (or
NFL). Players in the NFL had been idolized over the past century by Americans, but recently
people have started to realize that their idols have faults. In the past two decades, media has
shifted much of its attention to these popular professional players, and in doing that has dug deep
enough to uncover those faults. These players are people, they have a tendency to occasionally
break the rules and to go against the general morality of modern American society. For
transgressing these rules, then, they are supposed to be accordingly punished.
The punishments doled out thoughspecifically by the National Football Leaguehave
ranged greatly in terms of severity, especially throughout the past few years. There have been
cases dealing with the same issue, whether they be about substance abuse, domestic violence, or
other off-the-field issues. One major factor which appeared during this time was the increased
presence and power of social media in the National Football League. This establishment of
media in sports almost forced the administration of the NFL to rethink the ways it deals with

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problems which arise in the personal lives of its players. This power that the social media now
held in the realm of American football to inform the general population greatly influenced, and is
currently influencing, the manner in which the NFL deals with the faults of its professional
players.
When dealing with high profile players with off-the-field issues within the past decade,
most people could know of the crimes of Michael Vick and the punishment he faced. The
Michael Vick case was one that involved animal abuse, where the then Atlanta Falcons
quarterback was running a dog fighting ring on his own property. After this was discovered, Vick
was indicted and further investigated to find out his role in this crime against animals. This is
where the social media becomes prevalent, because as this news was released at the start of the
investigation, many citizens felt Vick should have been sentenced harshly (Emerling, 2007).
(Piquero, 2011). Even the news just getting released had the public opinion reeling enough to call
out for a severe punishment for Vick. This changed nothing about how the National Football
League was acting, though. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was never moved to take action.
In fact, no action was taken to against Vick from the league until it was released that he had
pleaded guilty to the charges, directly after which he was suspended. And still, the Falcons were
hesitant about releasing Vick. After the Falcons actually followed through with Vicks release, he
served eighteen months in prison, after which the NFL decided to lift his suspension. He was
even able to sign a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. This once again set off the social
media, part of which included the launch of a poll to pro football fans where fans responded that
they (1) believed Vick should receive some prison time (short=51 percent, long=35 percent),
(2) that he should never be allowed to play in the NFL again (58 percent), and (3) did not want
their favorite team to make an attempt to acquire his football services once he had served his

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sentence (75 percent) (Piquero, 2011). One can from the response of the public that the social
media had heavily influenced the opinions of many pro football fans. This is especially because
there is no mention of how long the dog fighting ring had been going on, and neglected to
mention that Vick was even sentenced to more years in prison than the prosecution had been
looking for (Unites States v. Vick, 2007). This withheld information helped the publics case
against him even more. Vick had already missed two seasons worth of football along with his
reputation as a respectable player in the eyes of the general American population. This reputation
even stayed within the National Football League, where he was never offered a starting spot by
another professional football team after the Eagles, despite his resume as a former-potential Hall
of Fame quarterback. In essence, one can say that Vicks punishment was more severe than what
was intended given his circumstances, but the information given out (and held back) by the
media greatly affected the fate of Michael Vick in the NFL.
When dealing with the reaction of the media to the infractions of professional football
players, quarterback Tom Brady and the Spygate and Deflategate scandals are particularly
synonymous with the famous players name. The first of the two to arise was the Spygate
scandal, which mostly involved the New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. In it, multiple
people and teams accused the Patriots of illegally recording the signals and audible plays of
certain teams to gain and unfair advantage in terms of strategy. These accusations also happened
to come in 2007, which also happened to be the time of the Patriots undefeated season (Griver,
2011). Although Tom Brady was not directly related in the recording of these videos, he was still
criticized for operating under Belichick with the presence of the video tapes. In the second
incident, Tom Brady directly accused of causing an illegal alteration of game footballs to get a
better grip on each football in a playoff game (Clark, 2015). Brady was subsequently suspended

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for four games in the following 2015 football season, which was actually overturned before the
season began (Tom Brady Suspension Timeline, 2015). In both scenarios, the social media had
a great role in the turnouts. With the presence of media to release information to the public, the
cases against Tom Brady developed around this media. Much of this media came through
statements and different information found by the investigations. In the Spygate scandal
specifically, the media started to influence the cases once it was found that the tapes of defensive
signals recorded by the Patriots were destroyed by the NFL administration (Griver, 2011). This
caused an outrage among teams within the NFL (because of the belief that the Patriots had
probably already analyzed the videos). Lawsuits were even filed against the Patriots by New
York Jets season ticket holders requesting at least $184 million in damages (Griver, 2011).
Although the claims were dismissed, the NFL was still prompted to take action against the
Patriots, even after destroying the tapes. This action came in the form of fining Coach Belichick
almost $500,000 and fining the Patriots as well. One could say that this was poorly handled by
the NFL, especially in the face of the general public which sought to see the tapes revealed so
that the claims against the Patriots could be more accurately assessed. But, because of this, the
Patriots (especially the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick duo) gained a reputation as a cheating team,
which is why the Deflategate scandal struck more harshly than the Spygate situation.
What had become different about the Deflategate case were the changes made in the
National Football league as well as the prior experience with the Spygate scandal. The NFL had
already started to become less lenient with misconducts on the field, and was now starting to
become stricter when dealing with off-field issues in the presence of social media. One off-field
problem which manifested on field was the alleged deflation of footballs before the AFC
Championship game between the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Quarterback Tom Brady might

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not have been necessarily involved at first, which would put the blame on the equipment
handlers of New England. Once the game started though, it would be clear to a professional
quarterback after just a few seconds of holding a football whether it has been illegally deflated or
not, as determined by Conan OBriens interview of New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees
("Drew Brees On Deflategate - CONAN on TBS"). With most of the footballs illegally
underinflated, it would be difficult to say that Tom Brady was unaware of the issue during the
game. Soon after the game, the concept of Deflategate started to spread as reports surfaced
that NFL is looking into the Patriots' use of "deflated footballs" in the AFC Championship Game
victory over the Colts. It was then soon revealed to the media that the NFL found that all 11
footballs used by the Patriots were underinflated ("Tom Brady Suspension Timeline," 2015).
The initial reaction of the public was one of one general opinion: to suspend Tom Brady. This
was backed up when investigator Ted Wells reported that it was highly improbable that Tom
Brady had no knowledge of the deflated footballs during the game ("Tom Brady Suspension
Timeline," 2015). This reaction prompted the NFL to suspend the quarterback for four games,
which was even upheld after Brady appealed his suspension. But, a judge then nullified the four
game suspension after he decided that no player who cooperates with the investigation, whether
aware of the incident or not, should have the same punishment as a player who has used illegal
substances (Orr, 2015). The judges decision, although against popular opinion, did bring up the
problem of substance abuse in its relation to the NFL and did effectively shut down the medias
disgust with Brady over something which could not have been as serious a problem as the use of
drugs or of domestic violence, both of which were becoming more prevalent in the NFL at the
time. In this, the media only seemed to have an initial effect in that it caused the suspension of
Brady after forcing Commissioner Goodells hand in the matter, but in fact builds a case against

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the New England quarterback through the popular opinion it expressed. Even in the fact that the
popular opinion lost in the case of Tom Brady, one can see that this media helped to shift the
attention to the problem of domestic violence in 2015, specifically in the case of Greg Hardy as it
compares to that of Ray Rice.
When observing the details involved in the cases of Ray Rice and Greg Hardy, one must
look at the age of each situation. That is because this age would determine the amount of
information that has been found about each situation. In the situation involving Ray Rice, the
case had been fully developed before the final outcome had happened. When dealing with the
Greg Hardy case, one could see that information is still in the process of getting discovered, and
the story is still developing today. Both situations involve domestic violence with both
professional players being the instigators. When Ray Rice was discovered to have beaten his
then-fiance unconscious, he was suspended for two games by the NFL, which is customary for
a developing case involving domestic violence. But in the middle of his suspension, a video
surfaced on the media which involved visual evidence of Rice knocking out his fiance while
waiting outside an elevator. When this video was released, Rice was released from the Baltimore
Ravens and suspended indefinitely (Rosenthal, 2014). There is a parallel involving former
Carolina defensive end Greg Hardy. Considering this case started developing after that of Ray
Rice, when initial reports arose involving details of Hardys prior arrest in 2014, the National
Football League took action almost immediately so that the public wouldnt see it handling
Hardy in the same way that it handled Rice. Hardy was suspended for ten games, which was
eventually stricken down to four games, after which he came back to play. What differs is the
way the teams treated Rice and subsequently Hardy. Rice was released by his then-current team,
while Hardy was already a free agent, and Rice was then never picked up by a team, while Hardy

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was signed by the Dallas Cowboys decently early in the free agent season. While some people
speculate that the reason Hardy was picked up by a team rather quickly due to his high level of
skill (Bell, 2015), a major detail would be ignored, which is the presence of social media. In the
Ray Rice case, the video of the beating of his fiance arose after his suspension, which caused
his suspension to become indefinite. In that way the spreading of that video through the media
caused an extension of his suspension. But in the situation involving Hardy, it could be argued
that the situation has not developed fully throughout the media. Only a few pictures of Hardys
girlfriend post-beating have been released into the media, and they have not given the NFL
enough incentive to take any action against the defensive end. One can ask if the NFLs actions
would be the same as they took against Rice if a video of Hardy beating his girlfriend were to be
discovered. As of right now, the details of the domestic violence involving Hardy is not fully
known, and in the future there may be more information which prompts the NFL to act
differently than how it has acted so far.
Throughout the past decade, the social media has had a major impact on sports
organizations, and especially on the National Football League. The media has influenced the
actions which the NFL has taken through the past few years especially, almost forcing it to be
stricter toward all infractions, both on and off the field. The emphasis the media places on these
players is understandable, though. Football has been growing in popularity for the past few
decades, and part of that includes media coverage of these players, some of whom are idolized
by people. Exposing these idols and forcing the NFL to take a larger action against these faulted
people, in essence, forces them to conduct themselves in a better manner, hopefully making them
worthy of the praise that people, both adults and children, give them. And eventually, it could
make American football worth all the attention it gets today.

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Works Cited
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United States v. Vick 2007. Richmond, VA.