Tray Dub wrote:No, if Blount is off the team, he has the option to play pro ball next year. If he doesn't get drafted, it's his own fault. This is about what's best for the team, not trying to compare two players and make sure his punishment is completely proportionate to some random NFL player.. Blount does not have the right to play football for this team. You act as if he's entitled to playing, even if it's at the detriment of the team.
No. This is about making sure that his punishment is proportionate to what he did. The comparison to Vick demonstrates that the consequences of kicking Blount off of the team would be greater than the punishment served to Michael Vick, who committed a much worse crime.
I have not acted like he is entitled to anything. There are many things any player could do that I would agree justify kicking someone off of the team over. I'm not making any excuses for Blount. I just don't think that what he did warrants career ending action.
Tray Dub wrote:It was a sucker punch. A sucker punch means a punch that is completely unexpected and thus doesn't give the guy receiving the blow any chance to defend himself. Your analogy isn't even close. Hout didn't push his face into Blount's fist, Favre pushed his body into the guy's legs.
That's not how I define a sucker punch. To me, it means a punch that a person
couldn't expect. By your definition. A person could argue that, after punching someone in the face, they didn't expect that they would get back up and punch them back as they were walking away. That wouldn't be a sucker punch. That would be retaliation. Hout was not reasonably justified to
expect that he could hit a man in the shoulder, yell in his face and not experience retaliation. There are many situations where a person could do something and get hit over that nobody would consider a sucker punch. For example, groping a mans wife in front of him. It is not a sucker punch if the husband punches the groper, even if the groper didn't think he would do it. That is because that is a completely unreasonable expectation.
I didn't say that the Favre play was analogous. I said that calling that play a sucker kick is like calling Blount's retaliation a sucker punch. That's because the kicking that occurred was a logical consequence of Favre's action. Just like the punch that occurred was a logical consequence of Hout's action.
Tray Dub wrote:Seriously? Because he's mad, he's dedicated? Maybe he's upset that he played like s*** on national television. We certainly don't know what was going through his head. What we DO know is that he gained weight in the offseason, didn't show up to a lot of offseason workouts, got thrown out of a practice earlier this year, and then hurt his team just because someone was talking smack. THEN, he struck his OWN TEAMMATE! Does that mean anything to you? Then he had to be restrained by police, coaches, and players so as not to attack a fan.
No. If the Ducks had won, it's doubtful that any taunting would have elicited that response from him. Therefore, his actions must be connected in some way to the primary interest of the team (to win games).
Tray Dub wrote:I agree that if we kicked him off just to look good, that would be the wrong decision. He should be kicked off because he's a detriment to our team, because he's displayed selfishness and disrespect to our team more than once, and because we need to teach our players that this behavior will not be tolerated. Honestly, if this was some third-string guard or something with a history like Blount's, would he stand any chance of staying on the team? Blount's talented, but that doesn't guarantee him a spot on our team.
Giving Blount a suspension would not be "tolerating" what he did. It would be the opposite of that. You seem to be arguing that the only punishment for players who step out of line is getting kicked off the team. We are in agreement that he did something wrong and should be punished for it. The disagreement is regarding the amplitude of the punishment.
He has had issues before and that should be taken into account when determining his punishment. In my judgement, that still does not come out to kicking him off the team.
