Sports // TSN - Jenny Dial Creech
Creech: A missed chance to discuss domestic violence and NFL
Jenny Dial Creech , Houston Chronicle Dec. 4, 2018 Updated: Dec. 4, 2018 3:26 p.m.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell talks during a news conference addressing the rash of NFL players involved in domestic violence, Friday, Sept. 19, 2014, in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
Photo: Jason DeCrow, Associated Press
As Monday Night Football began this week, I found myself in a text message conversation with a friend of mine throughout much of the game.
She's a rape survivor and now works in Houston as a counselor for survivors of domestic and sexual assault. She's also a huge football fan.
Most of the time, our conversations are about normal things - friendly trash-talking about our college football teams (she went to Texas, I to Oklahoma), the latest This Is Us episode, if we have time to try a brunch place we've both heard about soon.
But on Monday, we were texting while waiting and hoping that the Monday Night Football crew on ESPN would actually take some time to discuss Washington claiming Reuben Foster last week.
Foster was picked up about 48 hours after being arrested on domestic assault charges.
The next day, a video surfaced of then-Kansas City Chief Kareem Hunt assaulting a woman in a hallway in February.
The video is horrific. Hunt was released from the team that day.
While it was the right move by the team, it also raised a lot of questions about what all the NFL and the Chiefs knew about the incident before the video was released.
On its Sunday countdown show, ESPN aired an interview Lisa Salter did with Hunt. She did a good job, asked tough questions, pressed for answers.
His answers made my skin crawl. He said the guy in the video wasn't him. He said he felt sorry for his actions.
"I'm sure he is sorry," my friend texted me on Sunday. "But that doesn't mean he should get another chance with a team. It sends the same message."
It's the message she and I have talked about often. One that says, if you're a good enough football player you can get away with just about anything.
Until these men are no longer accepted in the NFL, that message will remain.
On Monday, we wondered if the Monday Night crew would talk about Foster. They needed to.
Jason Witten, who has an entire foundation dedicated to serving women and families affected by domestic violence, was on the broadcast after all.
Before the game, Salters gave a quick rundown of a conversation she had with Washington team president Bruce Allen. He claimed Washington "heard a side of the story that is different."
That was it… for hours.
Finally, in the fourth quarter, the announcers started a conversation about it.
Witten had strong words. He condemned Washington for signing Foster. There was some good dialogue about the topic of domestic violence from there. But it was weaved into play-by-play and came after a lot of really meaningless conversations.
And it came at a crucial time of the game where actual football should have been discussed.
The producers of the broadcast should have encouraged this conversation before kickoff.
It was the biggest NFL news of the week and deserved the attention.
Instead it was swept off to the fourth quarter as a bit of a throw away topic.
"I'm glad they are talking about this, but it's strange timing, no?" my friend texted me.
She was right.
In between talk about how the NFL needs to handle domestic violence better was also talk about which receivers were lining up. It was disjointed and awkward.
If we expect the NFL to do a better job handling these issues, we need to continue to keep them in the forefront.
Witten — who isn't the greatest commentator in the world — was actually the perfect person to talk about this issue because of his personal experiences. Sadly, he wasn't really given the platform to do so.
"Maybe someday the NFL will handle domestic violence the right way, and maybe the networks won't be afraid to really get on the league for it," my friend said in a text as the game was coming to an end.
"But tonight didn't cut it. From the side of the victim, we were once again not as important a topic as who was starting or what the weather was like. They have to do a better job all around."
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Jenny Dial Creech, a native of San Antonio and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, started at the Houston Chronicle in 2005 as a high school sports reporter. She has since covered an array of beats and served as an assistant sports editor and senior editor of Texas Sports Nation. Creech is the president of the Association for Women in Sports Media and was awarded the 2015 APSE Diversity Fellowship. In addition to her role at the Houston Chronicle, Creech also works with several high school and college journalists at Columbia University journalism conferences and workshops.
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