You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net
The news that Sean Taylor has reached a plea agreement with
Miami prosecutors that will keep him out of jail and land him an NFL suspension
that will be minimal if there is one at all certainly was welcome among all
those who follow and, especially, who are employed by, the Redskins. The
situation, which has been going on for a year, isn’t quite concluded yet.
Taylor has to do some community service type things in Miami area schools and
he’ll be on probation for 18 months. But it’s just about over and there are a
couple of things that need to be said about it in retrospect.
First, most of those who are complaining that this was a
case of someone with money get off easy don’t know what they’re talking about.
And I’m not claiming that I know what I’m talking about in this instance
either. I wrote here a while
ago that the charges against Taylor didn’t seem to fit what had transpired
on that day in West Perrine, the depressed community near Miami. If felony
charges carrying mandatory jail time were pressed every time there were threats
and punches exchanged on the streets of places like West Perrine, the courts
and prisons would be jammed to the gills.
Regardless of that, if you want to say that Taylor bought
his justice or got off easy because he’s an NFL player you need to demonstrate
that others, less rich and famous that Taylor, got more severe treatment for
committing similar offenses. It’s my educated guess that many, many more such
perps end up with community service and probation than go to jail. I don’t have
any statistics to back that up, mind you, but neither do most of those crying
foul in this situation, either. If anyone has any information to the contrary,
please feel free to forward it to me.
The most important thing about this whole affair, however,
is not the celebrity justice aspect but the mere fact that it happened. That
fact may well have saved Sean Taylor’s life.
A year ago Taylor was not anywhere near where he needed to
be and what he was doing did not remotely resemble what he needed to be doing. He
was blowing off phone calls from Joe Gibbs and that was the least of his
problems. According to this
excellent article by Robert Andrew Powell, he possibly carried a gun into a
club. Taylor was hanging out in West Perrine with a buddy who was up to all
sorts of activities ranging from unsavory to illegal if the contents of the
buddy’s house after he moved out are any indication. Instead of spending his
days at OTA’s in Ashburn, working out and polishing his knowledge of the
defense he was cruising around the housing project in an ATV.
Obviously, this is not a path that a young man who is very
talented in his profession and is worth millions of dollars should be on. In
fact, it was incredibly stupid for him to be where he was doing what he was
doing. Taylor, though, didn’t see it that way. He was bulletproof and he could
do whatever he wanted to do, the consequences, if any, be damned.
The consequences came in the form of a felony arrest warrant.
Sean Taylor was facing the possibility of spending a good chunk of the rest of
his life in jail. No matter how flimsy the charges may have seemed or how much
the prosecutor may have seemed to be overreaching in pressing such serious
charges, the time behind bars was staring him right in the face.
It appears that he has been scared straight. On the first
day of training camp last summer Taylor stayed out in the hot sun and signed
autographs for all of the kids who wanted one. While he wasn’t exactly glib
with the media he was much more accommodating than he had been in the past. The
more cynical out there might say that this was just PR, an attempt at image
rehabilitation. While they might be right to an extent, it does appear that he
genuinely has changed for the better.
This could well turn
out to be the best thing that ever happened to Sean Taylor. Had Joe Gibbs known
what path Taylor was on last year, he himself could not have written a better prescription
to knock him off of that path and get him onto the right one. Taylor certainly
would not have listened to any lecturing. It took something like this to give
him a shot at turning his life around. We will see whether or not he completes
that turnaround.
Rich Tandler is the author of The
Redskins From A to Z, Volume 1: The Games. This unique book has an account
of every game the Redskins played from when they moved to Washington in 1937
through the 2001 season. For details and ordering information, go to http://www.RedskinsGames.com
Ranking
the Redskins #17-24
