The football field is the gridiron. A place where modern-day warriors wage war on the opposition. Nobody has time to watch their language, right?
The Fritz-Pollard alliance, which checks, the NFL for diversity, wants the league to put in a rule in which the players would be penalized 15 yards for using certain words, like the n-word or the f-bomb. They don’t mean “trash talk”, they mean hateful, discriminatory language that doesn’t have a place in the game.
But not everyone agrees. Some feel the move would layer yet another unnecessary rule on the game, and that players can police themselves if they really want to. Still others say, expecting players to soften up their language while they’re beating the crap out of each other is just unrealistic.
But with the Jonathan Martin/Richie Incognito situation still in memory, and the presence of openly gay players on the horizon, the league is taking a harder look at language. But should curbing it be an official part of the game?
Our Man on the Edge, Robert Wilder, took to the streets of Panthers Country to get some answers…
