NFL Players + Money + Guns + HBO = Crazy

On Inauguration Day, HBO aired a new edition of Real Sports, the first for 2009 and its 14th season of its Emmy Award-winning sports news magazine.In this edition, there were three new stories and one update from 2006. Let's look at the only segment I watched:

Guns & The NFL:

This story is on the debate over NFL players who carry guns. Bernard Goldberg looks into the story. It starts with Bernard talking with former defensive end Marcellus Wiley who grew up in the violent streets of South Central Los Angeles. Wiley says he saw people getting shot. He saw people shoot others and he saw people who were killed after getting shot. Wiley says not even the football field was safe. He says in 9th grade, shots were fired at the football field from a building across the street. Wiley said he had to hit the deck to avoid getting shot.Wiley says he never touched a gun during that time. He never looked at a gun and didn't buy one until he joined the National Football League. (Right, and a frog doesn't bump it's ass everytime it hops?)


But Wiley says eight seconds after he was drafted into the NFL, he bought one.This is not uncommon in the National Football League. Players feel invincible on the field, but once they leave the sanctity of the stadium, they feel they're huge targets.

Daunte Robinson of the Houston Texans did not have a gun until his home was invaded which was situated in a gated community. The invaders stuck a gun in his face, right in front of his two children, then tied him up with duct tape and robbed him.

New York Giants receiver Steve Smith was held up at gunpoint outside his New Jersey home which was also in a gated community.

Richard Collier of the Jacksonville Jaguars lost his leg after he was shot 14 times and is paralyzed.

But the two incidents that hit closest to home for NFL players were the senseless murders of two young players. First it was the drive-by shooting of Derek Williams of the Denver Broncos outside a nightclub. Then the killing of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor in his Miami home really caused players to think about protecting themselves.

Marcellus Wiley says he now knows he's a target. He went from having zero in his bank account to having two commas and several zeroes. Wiley says being a millionaire made him a big target in the eyes of some people. And it also stems from where he came from. Compton in South Central Los Angeles. Wiley says many players came from rough neighborhoods and it's there where they become marked men because people know how much money they make. It's for that reason why many of them have gravitated to guns.

And Wiley goes on to say black players come from New Orleans, Southeast DC, places Wiley calls "murder capitals". And he says his whiteplayers come from places like Palo Alto, affluent neighborhoods. Wiley says his Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are spent in the murder capitals and that is what he has to deal with. (Right, so because it's the holiday's you the millionaire in your poverty stricken family, YOU the player has to travel back to Compton for every holiday?!? Obviously if this guy was smart, he'd simply pay for his family to come to him.. I mean afterall he does have a nice house right?)


Adewale Ogunleye of the Chicago Bears says you have to be crazy to think that you're not a target. Ogunleye lives in South Florida in the offseason, not far from where Sean Taylor was murdered. He believes Taylor might be alive today had he had a gun and not a machete. Ogunleye says players around the league talk about incidents like Taylor and are careful. Even when encountering a fan with the best intentions, players feel they still have to be on the alert in case someone is looking at them in a negative light. It's for that reason why Ogunleye owns a gun and keeps it in his house. Ogunleye bought that weapon from a former teammate on the Miami Dolphins, Jay Williams. He tells Bernard that he doesn't go anywhere without a gun. Williams played in the NFL for ten years and since his retirement, he's become a seller of guns. When he retired, Williams sent out a mass mailing to players letting them know he was in the gun business and said he knew what they were going through and would help to keep them safe.

There are no hard statistics on the number of NFL players who owns guns, but Williams says it's a lot. He thinks the numbers are close to 85% of all NFL players who own a weapon. The NFL tells its players that any handguns must be registered and cannot be anywhere near a league facility. But Williams said he brought a gun to practice every day against the rules. He says when he leaves practice, he's in the real world and if he stops for gas, goes to the store or just gets out of his car for anything, he's going to have his gun on him. (Bad Boys.. Bad Boys.. Whatcha gun do!)

Williams says the fear factor for athletes is not crazy paranoia, it's for real. He says criminals want to get near the athletes for their money and possessions. But Bernard argues that anyone in society can make that argument. Williams counters that the criminal element sees NFL players as the alpha males in the trenches playing a physical sport who make a lot of money, so the element wants to go after them and take what they have.While the player may feel safer, in reality, he may not be. Marcellus Wiley was asked if someone comes up to him pointing a gun, would he pull out his gun? Wiley replied that once a gun is at your head, it's too late, but players don't like the element of surprise. They like to see the play materialize in front of them and then take action. Adewale Ogunleye he understands by having two people with a gun in a confrontation, things could go horribly wrong, but he says having a gun at least gives him a chance of survival. And sometimes owning a gun puts the player in more danger than any potential assailant.

Enter Plaxico Burress who's gun was never registered. Because of that, Burress faces a potential prison sentence. Williams says that incident gave players who carry guns legally a bad name because it was obvious to him that Burress was not mature enough to handle a gun. (Right, and 85% of the NFLPA is mature enough to carry a gun?)

The incident made Wiley think that it could have happened to him. That the gun could have slipped from its holster and cause it to go off. (Right, because players carry their guns in their holsters, and not in the front or in back of their beltline!? C'mon on son, 50 Cent is goin to teach dat wangsta a lesson!)

Like most players, Wiley carried his weapon for peace of mind. But it snowballed from peace of mind to paranoia. He says the gun changed his perspective and what he saw. Instead of seeing a person who wants directions, Wiley was wondering if the person was a carjacker. And when he went to clubs, he would see people staring at him possibly looking for an autograph as people who would want to rob him. But then Wiley began to ask questions that many players may not. Would he be ready to pull a gun if confronted? Could he handle a potential attempted murder charge? Could he handle a murder charge? Even if he pulled the gun and didn't use it, could he handle the legal ramifications? Could he handle if he pulled the gun on the streets, the person he pointed the gun at was coming back? So when he was with the Buffalo Bills, Wiley decided he no longer wanted to own a gun. As he was driving near Niagra Falls, he felt something bad was going to happen the longer he held possession of the weapon. So he threw the gun into the falls and Wiley says he felt a 270 pound gorilla lift off his shoulders. (Dude, you do realize you just tossed your supposed registered hand gun into a river, or worse, it could be picked up by a child or criminal, and take human lives!?!? Way to think that one through... Real mature and responsible, how about taking it in to the local Police Department, and properly relinquishing the gun, I guess if you went to Hunter's Safety, or Weapon's training you'd know that..)


But even with his revelation, Wiley feels the trend is more guns in the NFL. Mostly because of the Sean Taylor incident and because players are making more money and getting more attention.While there's a war mentality on the field, there's one off the field as well. Jay Williams says it's down to who has the biggest advantage, the criminal or him? If the criminal has the gun, he has the advantage, but with Williams and his training, he feels he has the advantage. In the transition, Bryant and Bernard had a lengthy discussion on guns. Bryant asked Bernard if there was any evidence of players being attacked and Bernard replied you don't hear about NHL or baseball players feeling this type of pressure. Perhaps some NBA players do, but it's mostly with the NFL. Bryant wants to know if this is an NFL athlete problem or a black athlete problem. Bernard says it's an economic problem and players come from murder capitals. And in those neighborhoods, guns are a normal part of life. Bryant says the athletes are rich enough to hire bodyguards so why not use them? Bernard says if they do that, the prevalent feeling is that the players are not taking care of their own problems and they're a punk. Crazy story. But as Wiley says, the trend is more guns. Grade - A+. Very disturbing.