Arthur brings us another post for all you football-literate GLBT-ers.

Larry Johnson, a running back, was recently cut by the Kansas City Chiefs for remarks he made about fans, a reporter and on twitter. Since this is a gay/queer paper, I’ll spare you the details, but we can all guess the word he used. Now, I’m certainly no Chiefs fan (Daaaaaa Bears!), nor am I a Johnson supporter (make whatever joke you will with that phrasing), but I was not offended by Johnson’s remarks. No, I was not. His release from the Chiefs should not be interpreted as any sign of embrace of the LGBT-et al community by the NFL. Johnson was cut by the Chiefs because he was bad at football, and has since been picked up by the Cincinnati Bengals. Johnson probably would have been cut by the Chiefs at the end of the year due to his poor play, currently ranking 110th in the NFL in yards per carry, but his big mouth merely provided an immediate context for his dismissal.

First and foremost, the National Football League is a business. A very successful business. They are, by far, the most lucrative of the three major sports in this country and do a phenomenal job of marketing, protecting and owning their product. They know their audience and what their audience wants to see. The rules of the game have changed to make it far more difficult for teams to play defense. Why? Because people want to sit down and watch quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning throw the ball all over the field; they don’t want to see linebackers blowing up o-lines, the QB being sacked and cornerbacks breaking up highlight catches. The NFL, as a master of marketing, knows they do not have a large gay/queer audience, so they’re under no real pressure to do the right thing, be it disciplining Johnson or urging the Chiefs to release him.

Johnson’s remarks were hurtful and derogatory, there is no question. But truly, they did not offend me. The use of the word ‘faggot’ in most cases does not offend me. Most of the time ‘fag’ merely signifies a complete lack of imagination, dignity and intelligence on behalf of the user. It makes me smile, however faintly, that people are so unable to be creative when they seek to insult. The stupidity of Johnson aside, there is a much more systemic reason as to why Johnson himself doesn’t bother me perhaps as much as it should. When one thinks of professional American football, one imagines giant, angry over-paid men running around a field in pads literally trying to smash into and hurt each other. These are grown men who, for their own financial benefit and for the entertainment of others, subject themselves to brutal injuries (see the recent hearings on the Hill about concussions in the NFL). You are going to have a lot of guys in the NFL that are bad character guys, but it must be stated that the majority of NFL players, indeed all professional athletes, are in fact good people who get just paid far too much.

Larry Johnson finds himself way down the list of truly ‘bad guys’ playing the NFL. Just off the top of my head, you have Tank Johnson, a defensive tackle currently playing for the Bengals. He was arrested in his home in suburban Chicago in 2006 and was found to have had six, six, weapons in his basement, including two assault rifles. They were loaded, and there were children in the house. Johnson’s bodyguard was later shot and killed in a Chicago night club in 2007. Albert Haynesworth, currently of DC’s beloved Redskins, famously stomped on another players head during practice. Hanyesworth was wearing cleats at the time. The other player had on no helmet, because Haynesworth had pulled it off. Donté Staleworth and Ray Lewis, of the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens, respectively, have killed people. Staleworth got 120 days in prison. Lewis got nothing. Michael Vick, as we all know, spent two years in prison and lost a $150 million dollar contract.

Think about that for a minute. As heinous as Vick was, he had to do far more time in prison for killing dogs. Two other players killed human beings and didn’t even have to spend a year in jail. What?! What?!!? I’m supposed to be offended by Larry Johnson demonstrating stupidity and childish behavior?