The same weekend that the NFL settled in for its conference championship round, a little-known Seattle Seahawks offensive lineman stood accused of an act of violence so horrific that it still seems incomprehensible.
The report by police in King County, Washington, begins with Chad Wheeler asking his girlfriend to bow to him.
When she did not, the 201cm, 141kg lineman threw her on a bed and strangled her until she lost consciousness. When she came to, Wheeler was stunned.
Photo: AP
“Wow, you’re alive?” he reportedly said.
Authorities said that the alleged victim, Wheeler’s girlfriend, called the police to report that she was being “killed,” after escaping Wheeler’s clutches and locking herself in a bathroom.
When police arrived on the scene, they heard screaming and forced their way into the bathroom, where they found the victim bleeding with a dislocated arm and Wheeler hovering over her.
The police report states that Wheeler was on bipolar medication, but had not been taking it.
Wheeler wrote an apology on Twitter to his girlfriend for what he called a “manic episode.”
Once public pressure mounted, the team released Wheeler, a backup, and put out a statement about being “saddened” by his actions.
As has become custom, the NFL offered no substantial response.
In the months following the Ray Rice video of 2014 and after much public shaming, the NFL seemed to take this issue seriously.
They updated their personal conduct policy to include a six-game suspension for an act of violence and they sent domestic violence experts to clubs to educate players.
However, within two years, the trainings stopped, and the punishments doled out to offending players were illogical and inconsistent.
Emerging from one tunnel on Super Bowl Sunday will be Kansas City Chiefs wideout Tyreek Hill.
Hill’s history of violence includes punching his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach in college (for which he pleaded guilty and received probation) to being accused of abusing their three-year-old son (which he denied) and threatening his fiancee in April 2019 (for which prosecutors did not press charges).
Hill was suspended from team activities and the NFL investigated the case for four months, but cited a lack of evidence and concluded that Hill could rejoin the Chiefs just in time for training camp.
He did not miss a game.
Cascading out of the other tunnel will be Tampa Bay Buccaneers wideout Antonio Brown.
Brown was suspended for eight games this season after multiple accusations of sexual assault from multiple women and sending threatening messages to one of them.
Despite an allegation of rape in a civil suit, Tom Brady and the Bucs welcomed Brown back the moment they were able.
Instead of announcing that “Adrian Peterson is returning after being charged with child abuse and allegedly beating his son’s genitals with a tree branch,” they might say: “Adrian Peterson is returning from suspension after violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.”
Wheeler will likely never play another NFL down, but if you are exceptionally gifted, the NFL will almost always find a place for you no matter what you do in your spare time — unless it is fighting police brutality and racial injustice.
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
Bayern Munich on Sunday were crowned German champions for the 34th time, giving striker Harry Kane his first major trophy, after second-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen drew 2-2 at SC Freiburg. Bayern’s 3-3 draw at RB Leipzig on Saturday, when the Bavarians came from two goals down to take the lead before conceding a stoppage-time equalizer, meant defending Bundesliga champions Leverkusen needed to win at Freiburg to delay the title party. Leverkusen were two goals down before scoring twice in the final 10 minutes, but Xabi Alonso’s side could not find a third, as Bayern reclaimed the title at the first attempt after
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
A man fell from the 6.4m-high Clemente Wall in right field at PNC Park in Pittsburgh during Wednesday night’s game between the Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Right after Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Pirates ahead 4-3, players began waving frantically for medical personnel and pointing to the man, who had fallen onto the warning track. The fan was tended to for approximately five minutes by members of both the Pirates and Cubs training staffs as well as PNC personnel before being removed from the field on a cart. The team issued a statement shortly
RSS