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.
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