Pro Football in a Corner : Henley case has NFL squirming uncomfortably
Imagine bringing the family to a National Football League game this fall and hearing this by way of a player introduction: “Now playing cornerback for the Rams, Darryl Henley, out on bail awaiting trial on charges of masterminding a national drug-distribution ring.”
That’s not going to happen, of course, but such a public-address announcement would be a summary of the discomfiting facts in Henley’s situation.
The accused are innocent until proved guilty, and this should be as true in major cases such as Henley’s as in minor ones. Moreover, people have to earn a living. Thus the NFL has cleared him to play this season while he awaits trial; the Rams have signed him to a one-year contract.
But playing NFL football isn’t just any job: It dominates the American landscape on Sunday afternoons in the autumn and early winter. Football players are ambassadors for their game. The players appearing in the TV ads for charity look terrific, and Henley, for now at least, will look not so terrific.
Despite its intrinsic violence, professional football has worked overtime to package itself as family entertainment. It deserves considerable credit for this. It has procedures for those found guilty of drug or alcohol violations. Thus it has good reason to set a higher standard for itself than even a court would.
Fortunately for the game, the NFL doesn’t have many cases quite like this. The courts don’t seem to have known quite what to do either; they allowed Henley to make bail when ordinary folks in his situation wouldn’t have gotten it, and indeed while others in the case went to jail.
Henley is supposed to be confined to a limited geographical area by the terms of his bail. But he wants to travel with the team, and since he has met the requirements successfully so far, the court will be hard pressed to judge him a flight risk. On balance, neither the league nor the courts would appear to have any grounds for denying him the right to play. But with the grievous charges, it’s hard not to note that the Henley case puts the NFL uncomfortably into the drug spotlight.