Sports

Rihanna and Chris Brown are in the middle of the NFL's Ray Rice scandal

by Tyler Munro

As a football fan, it’s becoming increasingly important to make the distinction between loving the game and supporting the league. As the Roger Goodell digs the NFL’s public-perception grave deeper—and as we learn more about how the league’s handling Ray Rice’s violent assualt on his wife, Janay—loving the sport has become harder and harder. At its purest, the game is a tacticians dream—eleven men on either side acting out a beautifully violent game of chess. The problem? It’s run by horrible people and each roster is not without its fair share of scumbags.

Earlier this week, amid the release of the full video of the Ray Rice incident, countless pundits were justifiably calling for Goodell’s head on a platter. But fans realized something: As the league was set to debut its new, revamped Thursday Night Football with a classic rivalry game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, there was one incredibly unfortunate coincidence lingering. Rihanna, herself a victim of a domestic assault at the hands of a man who can ultimately be reduced to a dancing pile of human garbage, is the singer of this year’s TNF theme.

In short: The NFL was set to usher in a new year of Thursday Night Football and the beginning of the Ray Rice-less Ravens era with a singer whose relationship with a violent criminal will follow her for life.

Surprisingly, the league came to its senses… eventually. It wasn’t announced until yesterday afternoon, mere hours before kickoff, that Goodell et al saw the PR nightmare in front of them. And since the league is reactionary, not preventative, they eventually decided to nix RiRi’s rendition of “Run This Town” from the game’s opening presentations.

Not that the buck stops there. Chris Brown decided that Ray Rice’s assault on his then-fiancée was the perfect time to start talking about his own road to recovery, one which, we’d love to point out, has featured countless temper tantrums, fist fights, assault charges, parole violations and terrible, terrible music videos.

“To Ray, or anybody else — because I’m not better than the next man — I can just say I’ve been down that road,” said Brown to MTV’s Sway Calloway. “I deal with situations and I’ve made my mistakes too, but it’s all about how you push forward and how you control yourself.”

Great advice. If only it was coming from somebody other than Chris Brown, a remorseless criminal that’s yet to show any proof that he actually feels bad about his assault on Rihanna.

“Run This Town” will presumably make its debut next week, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against the Atlanta Falcons.

One thing: If you’re a fan of the sport, don’t boycott it. Don’t walk away from the NFL. Instead, call them on their bullshit. To riff on Katie Nolan’s brilliant video from earlier this week, boycotting the NFL does nothing but remove the critical thinkers from the conversation. Problems don’t go away because you choose to ignore them. And as people (read: idiots) are saying to drop the “attack” on Ray Rice because Janay says she’s fine, it’s important to remember that engaging in a dialogue about domestic violence, or drug abuse, or any other crime, is not about punishing the accused, but looking out for the victim.