Something’s Wrong With Robbins Story

Your teammates won’t call you out if you beat your wife, get busted with drugs, slam your car into a family while drunk, murder your son or girlfriend, get caught with a prostitute, etc. But God forbid if you suffer from depression or some other untreated mental illness, as Raider center Barret Robbins does, that causes you to blow your chance in participating in the Super Bowl. If you do, you’ll incur the wrath of your Raider teammates and L.A. Times reporter Sam Farmer.

David Beringer

Pasadena

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The Raiders should be ashamed of themselves for their handling of Barret Robbins’ mental illness. If he had been incapacitated by some sort of physical problem -- pneumonia, irregular heartbeat, a broken arm -- nobody would have taken exception. But because his infirmities were psychological in nature, it apparently justified throwing him off the team, ejecting him from the team hotel and ostracizing him.

Such backward attitudes about mental disease do not belong in the 21st century.

Christopher Bates

Los Angeles