NFL Players and Violence: A Deadly Combination
Guns, murder and robbery of high profile athletes in football
Why does it seem that any NFL player off field is getting violence connected with him in some way? In the last 3 years, there have been two players murdered and several injured in connection with guns and knives. Just 2 weeks ago Plaxico Burress of the New York Giants shot himself accidentally with an unregistered handgun in a night club. He has since been suspended for the remainder of the season. Adam "Pacman" Jones of the cowboys has missed all of the 2007 season and 4 games of the 2008 season due to suspension involving fights and guns.
Players reasons for having weapons
A lot of players state that they carry handguns to help them feel safe. Because they have money and are high profile, they feel they are under a serious threat. What makes no sense with this theory is music stars and actors also have money and are high profile but we don't see Steve Tyler of Aerosmith or Jim Carrey or Morgan Freeman carrying around a 9mm handgun. So why do NFL players feel the need to protect themselves with guns? Why are NFL players being targetted as well? We can't leave this as it's just the players looking for violence. The last two murders of NFL players were without the players even being armed. They were random acts of violence. Maybe this is why players carry the guns. But if that's the case, then why carry it illegally as in the case of Plaxico.
Reasons for the players being targettedOne reason that could be for the players being targets of violence is the money. Even though music stars and actors make as much if not more than players, for the NFL players their paychecks are public knowledge. Everyone knows how much Terrell Owens signed with the Dallas Cowboys for. It was all over the news. The fact is that with their salaries being made public, that makes them a very likely target to try to rob or extort. Another reason could be that some of the players don't exactly hide that they have money. They wear the bling. They drive the cars.
Why the NFL and not other sports?Now comes the next big question. Why are the NFL players the ones targeted? Why not Major League Baseball or NBA players or NHL players? Why mainly the NFL players? They all get paid insanely huge amounts of money to play sports. All the big salaries from all the leagues are made public and talked about in papers and on TV. So why is the NFL being singled out? So far all research has turned up no answer to this question. But we must keep looking in order to preserve the league and the lives of it's players.
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