Ty Ranks the 2016 NFL Teams: Sleeping in on a Sunday Morning Edition

Then there were 8.

I'm down to the last 2 days of my countdown of the NFL. These are the good teams. They are not the best of the best, but a couple of things break their way, they could find themselves in the Super Bowl. These teams are nearly complete, and they are legit contenders. On with the countdown.

At number 8, I have the Minnesota Vikings. This team took a real big step forward last year. The offense is led by a child abuser, and all out human monster, Adrian Peterson. I know he is a very good running back, but that does not change the fact that he purposefully beat up his 4 year old and showed no remorse for it. Yes, he is good, but every time he gets hit on the field, I hope he gets injured. People who beat up children deserve the worst. At QB, I really want to like Teddy Bridgewater, and maybe this is the year he finally puts it all together. He checks down way too much, but they did draft Laquon Treadwell, who I think can be a good NFL player and he also has Kyle Rudolph at tight end. He is a machine at catching the ball. I also like Stefon Diggs, and he has a full year under his belt. Cordarelle Patterson hasn't put it together yet, and this year may be his last chance, but he can still be good. The Vikings o line is pretty decent as well. Where I think this team is underrated is their defense. They're very formidable. The defensive line is decent, anchored on each end by Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen. The linebackers are very good, led by Chad Greenway and Anthony Barr. The secondary has very good players, namely Harrison Smith and Andrew Sandejo. They may not be the brightest names, but they are all very good players on a very good defense. Mike Zimmer has also proven to be a capable head coach. This Vikings team is getting better, and they will challenge Green Bay again. I say they finish the season 11-5.

At number 7, I have the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, first off, I cannot stand this team. They are whiny babies, they complain about everything that doesn't go their way, they are basically the LA Clippers of the NFL. But, they are good. Their QB, another piece of human garbage, is Ben Roethlisberger. When he isn't out allegedly sexually assaulting young females, he is a good to great QB. He is such a terrible person, but he is durable, plays injured and makes throws, so he gets a pass from idiots like Roger Goodell and ESPN. The running game will miss LeVeon Bell after he skipped another drug test and got suspended for four games, but a guy like D'Angelo Williams or Fitz Toussaint will pick up the slack. I know Toussaint fumbled away the playoff game last year, but he is a good enough back that he will get over it, and probably put up decent numbers until Bell gets back. Williams, while older, still runs hard and gains yards. They still have old reliable, Heath Miller at tight end, so that position is still very good. At receiver, they have the wonderful and prolific Antonio Brown. I don't care what kind of stupid hair cut he has when he makes as many catches as he does, racks up as many yards as he does and scores as many TD's as he does. Antonio Brown is awesome. And he is not the only threat. They also have Markus Wheaton, who is very good. The Steelers offense could be lethal. They also have a pretty good defense as well. Guys like James Harrison, Ryan Shazier, Alvin Dupree, William Gay, Jarvis Jones and Shamarko Thomas are all very good at their jobs. They can pressure and cover. This team, as much as it pains me to say it, could very easily make their way, and possibly win, the Super Bowl this season. But, they do have questions. Can Roethlisberger stay healthy and out of trouble? Same for Bell? will Antonio Brown be tired from carrying this team last year? And when will Mike Tomlin make another bone headed decision, because we know it's coming. I think the Steelers will be good, if everything breaks their way. I have them at 12-4.

At number 6, I have the hometown team of our head editor, the Cincinnati Bengals (ed note: Go Bengals). First off, I hope they change their name to the Harambe's, because that would be absolutely incredible. Anyway, they still have Andy Dalton at QB. This guy has to be so frustrating to watch if you are a Bengals fan. He will look great one play, then do something that only Tony Romo does on the next play. He chucks way too may passes in the air as well. He is a complete wild card. But, he does have receivers that are willing and able to try and track down those errant throws. AJ Green is a highlight reel on almost every play. His catches are almost as spectacular as Odell Beckham's. Green is one of the upper echelon receivers in the NFL. Tyler Eiffert is about as reliable as they come. The Bengals need a first down, they go to him. They need 5 yards, they go to him. they need a jump ball in the endzone, it's Eiffert or Green. They also have Brandon LaFell, who I don't think is that bad. The Bengals running game is top notch. They have two awesome backs in Giovanni Bernard and Jeremy Hill. Hill is explosive and Bernard is the bruiser, They both could start on almost any team in the NFL, but they choose to split time, and they are an exceptional duo. The Bengals defense has kind of turned into the old version of the Raiders. They are good, but they are dirty. Look no further than their playoff game last year. Yeah. Vontaez Burfict and Adam Jones are very good, but they are selfish and get way, way too many personal foul penalties. Dre Kirkpatrick is a good corner, but he plays opposite Jones, so that is a no win situation for him. Carlos Dunlap is a good linebacker, but all anyone talks about is Burfict and the penalties. Same for Ray Meauluaga. Very good, but gets overlooked. Carlos Dunlap is a good defensive end too. This Bengals team is good, but can they get out of their own way. I think this may be the last real chance that they have, and they should, at the very least, make it to the second round of the playoffs. I say the Bengals finish 11-5.

At number 5, I have my team, the Green Bay Packers. This team got absolutely ravaged with injuries last year and still almost made the NFC championship game. Aaron Rodgers is solidly in the top 3 of the best QB's playing right now. He has a great arm, runs when needed, throws into minuscule windows and puts up huge numbers. He is the engine that runs this offense. Eddie Lacy, if he loses weight and doesn't get hurt, makes the Packers run game a threat. When he is in there, and running hard, he is tough to take down, and he puts up numbers. I am an Eddie Lacy fan, but he has to show me a good, full season. I do like James Starks as his backup though. He is tall, finds holes and gashes teams for big, big runs. At receiver, this is where is gets dicey. If Jordy Nelson comes back fully recovered, than at least the Packers have one elite wideout. Nelson is very good and they missed him a whole lot more than I though they would last year. Randall Cobb is also very good, but he gets hurt way too much on returns, and he takes a beating going over the middle. He is small, but he plays big. After those guys, it's thin. I do like Richard Rodgers at tight end, but the fact that they are trying out Kellen Winslow Jr tells me they don't have a lot of faith in him. The Packers o line is the weak point of the offense. /they don't protect that well, and they open up very few lanes. They need work. The defense is good, but I feel like it can be better. When you have guys like Julius Peppers, Clay Matthews, Jake Ryan, Mike Daniels, Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix and Sam Shields, you should be better than middle of the pack. They give up big plays way too often. I also want Peppers and Matthews to talk to the guys that accused them of PED's, so they can clear their names. The bottom line, as long as Aaron Rodgers is the QB, this team will be competitive. I see a better year from Lacy and having Nelson back will really help out. I also think the defense will, and should, play a lot better. I think the Packers reclaim their stop at the top of the division and they win 12 games doing that.

Come back tomorrow for the last four teams of my countdown.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is building an eternal flame in his backyard to remember the greatest ever, Harambe. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

We Need To Stop Making Excuses For Violent Athletes

Violent people belong behind a fence with razor wire, not in our arenas and stadiums.

With the news coming out last week that Blake Griffin will miss the majority of the regular season after punching the Clippers equipment manager, repeatedly, and breaking his shooting hand, I ask everyone today, why do we let athletes get away with heinous acts like this? Why did Blake Griffin feel the need to punch this guy so many times, in the face, to the point of injuring himself? And why are their people out their defending him? I heard Charles Barkley, my all time favorite basketball player, on Bill Simmons podcast recently say that "this stuff happens all the time" and that we "shouldn't overreact to this news". That's insane! If any regular Joe did this at their job, they'd be fired immediately, no questions asked. But, we as a society, feel like it's okay to give professional athletes a pass and that is very disturbing.

In the last two years, we've had far too many incidents involving violent behavior coming from pro athletes. And yes, football is the main culprit, but it's spilling over into other pro sports. The athletes that are involved in these incidents are pretty famous too. Kids are supposed to look up to these people. I've written about how terrible Hope Solo, Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice are on the site before, but lets not forget about Aroldis Chapman's domestic violence charge that was recently dropped. A trade was voided because the Dodgers didn't want that PR mess. He was basically a sitting duck until the New York Yankees traded for him and the whole story went away. Or what about all the off season, in season and now post season stuff that's coming out about Greg Hardy? He abuses multiple women, still gets a contract from the Dallas Cowboys, has multiple fights with multiple teammates during the season and now, in the offseason, he can't seem to stop partying. Why does he still get a free pass from the morons over at ESPN? Also, in the college ranks, look at former Missouri QB Matty Mauk. He had to get suspended four times before they kicked him off the team and they only kicked him off when a video of him doing cocaine surfaced. He's not some hot shot QB that's going to help Missouri win many games, but he was a division one caliber QB so he got way more chances than any other non student athlete at Missouri gets because he's good at sports. Why the double standard? It's not fair to the 95 percent of students that don't play sports. They slip up once, they're expelled. But, if you're competent at football, you get way too many chances. That doesn't seem fair.

Now, there's this new story about Johnny Manziel physically assaulting his ex girlfriend that ESPN and Jerry Jones will certainly try to cover up. How many chances does this punk get? He has made mistake after mistake since his sophomore year of college, but everyone seems to write it off. He can showboat and anchors think it's him getting in opponents head, not him being a selfish asshole. Then he slips in the draft because of "character issues", but that's not his fault either. When he does get on the field in the NFL, he looks lost and slow, but it's never his fault, it's coaching and system. When he goes to rehab, but then is spotted 6 months later drinking on the bye week, it's said that he's a young kid and young kids make mistakes. And now we have the second time that he's been brought up on physical abuse charges. People seem to have already forgotten that he was charged with pushing his ex girlfriend's head into the car window before the season started and now there is this new story of him assaulting her at, you guessed it, a bar. Why does this born with a silver spoon, spoiled punk keep getting second, third and fourth chances. He's not a good pro and he's an even worse person. He needs to be in a real rehab, getting real help. I don't need to hear Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski make anymore excuses for Johnny Manziel. I'm fed up with it.

Which brings me to Blake Griffin. The stuff I've heard, from people I really respect, people like Charles Barkley, Bill Simmons, Zach Lowe and Kevin Pelton, just to name a few, is downright absurd and kind of disturbing. Like I said with Barkley earlier, he claims this happens all the time. That doesn't make it right. That is not a viable excuse for someone to physically attack someone smaller than them. The only repercussion that Simmons, Lowe and Pelton can seem to find is to trade him to a different team. Oh yeah, go let him beat up some other team's equipment manager, that will solve his anger problem. These same guys will say, "he apologized, it's over", are dead wrong. You know how many times physical abusers apologize, then do the same exact thing a month later? The vast majority of them. My mom works in a battered women and children's center and she's told me some of the guys have apologized upwards of 10 to 15 times, only to abuse again and again. In fact, and I'll give Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon credit here, they are the only two sports anchors I've heard say that Blake Griffin needs to be suspended immediately for at least, the rest of the season. I agree, except they should have added, suspended without pay. It's like I said earlier, anyone that works a regular job, if they physically attacked someone, they'd get fired that instance, without hesitation. But, there's that double standard with pro sports. I've also heard some of the people that are pro Blake Griffin say that they've been mad enough at a friend to hit them, but they never say that they actually hit them. This is no real friendship if Blake Griffin thinks it's okay to punch this guy until he breaks his hand. This is a sickening act done by a disturbed man child.

I wish we as a society made these abusive athletes responsible for their heinous actions. Instead, we sweep it under the rug and forget about. and therein lies the problem. Everyone needs to be held accountable by the horrible things they do, pro athlete or not.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He was once so mad at the head editor that Ty beat him by 80 on NCAA Football 2006. No hitting, just humiliation. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Stink of the Packers is Getting Worse

Current home to the Packers offense

I'm going to end my week on a sour note.

I've been giving love and skepticism to two different teams this week. I love the Warriors and I'm very suspicious of the Panthers. Today, it's straight up hate for my favorite NFL team, the Packers.

They have looked incredibly lost four of the past five weeks. First, Denver, with an injured, old and past his prime Peyton Manning, absolutely crushed them. This was the lone game of the season thus far where Manning looked like himself. He shredded Green Bay's secondary, and Denver's running game looked the best it has all season in that game. Aaron Rodgers was rushed, pressured and beaten into submission. His throws were off target and he was missing wide open receivers. The run game wasn't much better. They couldn't hit the holes or there were no holes for them to hit. Denver is a better team than Green Bay and that game proved it. I thought this was going to be a one time thing. They were playing a very good team, on the road, so the loss didn't bother me as much. It was a bump in the road, or so I thought.

The next week, they went to Carolina to play the undefeated Panthers. I had a bad feeling about this game, but I thought the Packers could win. Then, the Panthers pulled out to a huge lead in the second quarter, scoring 24 points. The Packers defense, for the second straight week looked absolutely abysmal. They couldn't stop the run or the pass. Cam Newton and Jonathan Stewart ran and passed all over them. And, all the way until the fourth quarter, Green Bay's offense was non existent. They, once again, couldn't run or pass. In the fourth quarter, they finally put together some offense, pulling to within 8 with about 2 and a half minutes left. They drove all the way down to the red zone, but Aaron Rodgers missed a wide open receiver, instead flushing out of the pocket and throwing a stupid interception to a linebacker. It was yet another frustrating loss.

But, the silver lining was still around. They lost two straight, but they were both on the road to two undefeated teams. Something like this happens to every team at some point during the season. Also, they had the Lions upcoming at Lambeau. The Lions hadn't won there since 1991 and they looked bad. Their offense was just as inept as Green Bay's, and their defense, not that much better. Surely, they'd right the ship. I figured it would be a blow out and the Packers would be back. Then, the game happened. Once again, Green Bay couldn't move the ball on offense. The run game was nowhere to be found. Rodgers was getting pressured constantly and he was, once again, missing open receivers. The defense played better, but it was the Lions. Everyone was shutting them down. The game was boring too. At halftime Green Bay was winning, but the score was 10-6. One touchdown and four field goals. Terrible. Then, the Lions scored an early second half touchdown due to a Packers turnover. No big deal I kept telling myself. They'll figure it out I kept telling myself. The Lions even missed the extra point, so the Packers were only down three. But, they just couldn't move the ball. No run game and Rodgers running for his life and throwing errant pass after errant pass. The Lions scored later in the half, but missed the extra point again. So, that left the score at 18-10 with about 4 minutes left. They still had a shot. And, wouldn't you know it, they put together a drive and scored a touchdown. It only took them three and a half quarters to score a second touchdown against a mediocre defense. They cut the lead to 18-16. They had a chance to tie with a two point conversion. They had a great play call, but the pass was late, and the defender batted it away. I thought the game was over there, but they recovered an onside kick and had a chance to win with a field goal. But, they missed the kick and lost the game. It was inevitable. They lost this game early in the third quarter. So, the Lions snapped a 23 year losing streak in Lambeau. The Packers were a mess.

The Vikings continued to win, and actually took over first place from them leading up to their showdown the following week in Minnesota. Everyone, including me, thought that this was going to be a beat down from the Vikings. Green Bay was reeling and Minnesota was on a win streak, shutting down every opponent and chewing up the clock with long drives. But, the Packers actually came out with a fire and a passion. They completely shut down child abuser Adrian Peterson. They rushed and hurried and hit Teddy Bridgewater all game. Their corners were lock down. It was a great effort from the defense. The offense showed up too. Eddie Lacy ran for over 100 yards. Rodgers hit open receivers and had time in the pocket. They cruised back into first place with an easy 30-13 win. Now, everything seemed to be back on track.

They were back in first place and had an upcoming Thanksgiving home game against the sorry Bears. Surely they'd win. They were retiring Brett Favre's jersey, they were at home, they came off a big road win and they were playing the Bears, another team they own at Lambeau. But, they crapped away an easy win last night. They looked great in the first quarter, Eddie Lacy capping it off with a 25 screen pass for a touchdown. But, they couldn't do anything after that. And, the Bears found enough offense to take a 14-13 lead into halftime. In the second half, Green Bay did zero with the ball on offense. At one point, Rodgers took a sack after a botched shotgun snap, and he came up holding his left wrist. Now, I'm sure the wrist hurt, but I also think his pride was hurt too. He's looked pretty bad at times these past five weeks. He's not the same QB I picked to win the MVP. He definitely misses Jordy Nelson and the run game is non existent, but that doesn't explain his drop off in accuracy. He's dancing around too much in the pocket. He's not getting a lot of time from his line, but he's getting enough. He's either hurt, or he is struggling, maybe both, but he's not the same QB he was in weeks one through six.

Something is wrong in Green Bay and it may be too late to fix it. I picked them to win the Super Bowl, but I have no faith in them anymore. They can't sustain drives and they can't stop anyone. They look really bad right now and the blame goes to everyone. The players, the coaches and the organization all deserve equal blame. They better fix what ails them quick, or they won't make the playoffs, much less the Super Bowl. They are maybe the fifth or sixth best team in the NFC. They aren't on Carolina or Arizona or even Minnesota's level right now.

The Packers stink and it hurts my soul to say it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. If the Packers continue their losing ways Ty will have to deal with the Head Editors gloating. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Cowboys and the NFL do not care about the safety of women

This means more to the NFL than decency and repsect

Today I was going to write an irrational hatred sports blog about the Dallas Cowboys.

A lot of people hate the Cowboys and I'm one of those people, but I hate them for different reasons. That blog will have to wait until a future date because I have a newer, even bigger problem with the Dallas Cowboys and one irrational hatred blog wouldn't be able to cover it. This deserves it's own separate blog. I have a big, big problem with how this team is handling this Greg Hardy situation.

From the top of this organization all the way to the bottom, they've mishandled this whole ordeal. First of all, the Panthers did the right thing when they cut ties with this monster last offseason. I know he was under contract and that he was supposed to come back after his year long suspension for hitting a woman, but the Panthers did the right and respectable thing cutting ties with him completely. They wanted to move on from this horrible person, and they didn't want him involved with anything they did as a team. That's a wise decision by a front office. So, he gets released and he's a free agent able to sign with any team willing to take a chance on this woman abuser. Who should that team be? None other than the god damned Dallas Cowboys.

America's team they still call them.

What a crock of shit.

The Cowboys are no longer America's team. They're almost as irrelevant as the Cleveland Browns. ESPN is the only network that seems to cover these two teams like they matter. They don't. But, of course the Cowboys signed him. They needed a pass rusher and they went out and got one of the better pass rusher in the league. They figured, who cares that he's a loose cannon that, at any minute, will turn on you and use physical abuse if necessary, they needed a defensive lineman.

Prior to this season, world class moron Roger Goodell gave Hardy a ten game suspension, then dropped it to four games when a court agreed that was enough for his heinous crime. Let me say it again, he physically abused a woman. He beat her and left brutal bruises on her body and a court agreed that he would only miss the same amount of games that they tried to give Tom Brady for under inflating footballs. How on Earth is this allowed by the most popular sport in the US? Why do they let these abusers back on the field so soon? I guess, if you're a good enough football player, what you do in your personal life doesn't matter. You can be a woman abuser like Hardy. You can beat children like Adrian Peterson and you can bully teammates so much that they consider suicide like Richie Incognito did. Doesn't matter, these guys are good football players, so they get second, third, fourth and so on and so forth chances. Some stupid ass GM for some irrelevant team will sign them.

As I said before, the Cowboys are also rans, the Bills haven't been good in over a decade and the Vikings are finally having their first real success since they drafted child abuser Adrian Peterson. I will say, Peterson, at least on the surface, seems to show some kind of remorse, but what he did what so heinous, I can't look at him without disgust. Incognito doesn't seem to care what people think of him and I'm sure he still bullies people and Greg Hardy is an insane person that should not be in the NFL. Let's look at some of the things he's done since being reinstated by the league. His first game back was against the Patriots. During the week of practice leading up to this game, while being interviewed, he made some odd and inappropriate remarks regarding Tom Brady's wife Gisele Bunchen. He said, and I'm completely paraphrasing, something along the lines of "I hope she's there to see me crush her husband" and "I hope that I see her and her sisters in the crowd because they're very attractive". I'm sure in his mind, he thought he was complementing them. He couldn't be more wrong. This is inappropriate and if anyone said stupid shit like this at any office job, they'd be fired in less than one second for sexual harassment. This was very bizarre behavior from Hardy. This should've been strike one and should've been a sign to the front office that more stupid ass, Neanderthal behavior was to come from this monster. The Cowboys did nothing about this situation. Then, a couple of weeks later, during a game, he verbally berated some special teams players for giving up a big play during a crucial moment of the game. You could see him, on live TV, screaming obscenities at these teammates of his. He threatened these guys with physical violence. Dez Bryant had to step in the way and be the voice of reason. Dez Bryant is one hell of a football player, but he should never be counted on to be the voice of reason. Hardy proved in this moment that nothing has changed with him. He's still the same psychotic monster that thinks the best way to solve conflict is physical abuse. After the game, Jerry Jones was asked about the incident and he said that he loved the compassion coming from one of the teams leaders. Are you flipping kidding me! This is not what a leader does. A leader doesn't scream in people's faces and threaten them with violence. This is what a psychopath does. How in the world can Jerry Jones think that this is, not only okay, but a sign of leadership? It's baffling. Then last week, Deadspin, one of my favorite websites, released photos from the night that Hardy abused his then girlfriend. The photos are haunting. They're some of the most brutal things that I've seen in quite some time. This woman had bruises all over her body. The 911 call was released and the back and forth between the caller and dispatch was scary. It was as bad as what I imagine the recording of the guy getting eaten by the bear in the movie "Grizzly Man" sounds like. It's also very terrifying to see what was said during the call. After all of this was released, Hardy released a statement and said what every repeat abuser says, "I'll never do this again", "I was young and dumb", "It was a lapse in judgement", basically, a bunch of crap. He doesn't mean these things when he says them. His law team gave him something to read and he read it. He didn't give it a second thought after reading and went about his day. I assumed he would have been cut before their game last night. I figured this would be the third strike and the Cowboys would have to let him go. He was and is becoming the nuisance that he is and he's a very big problem. He's the definition of a distraction. But, did the Cowboys and Jerry Jones do the right thing and let him go? Of course not. Jerry Jones said that the Cowboys were giving him the second chance he deserves. I'm at a loss for words.

How can Jerry Jones be so blind to doing the right thing? How can he think that he and the Cowboys can help make Greg Hardy a better person? They can't. My mother has worked with battered women and children for the last 20 plus years and she tells me all the time that these guys don't change. Once an abuser, always an abuser and I agree with her one hundred percent. Greg Hardy is a monster and should not be playing in the NFL. He shouldn't be playing football anywhere. He needs to be in anger management and taking classes on how to be less of a total asshole. I guess that I'm naïve though. How many correct decision has Jerry Jones made in the past ten years? How many correct decisions has Roger Goodell made since he's been commissioner of the league? The answer is a resounding ZERO. Both of these guys are morons and they will continue to let monsters like Adrian Peterson, Richie Icognito and Greg Hardy play as long as they're making money hand over fist. It's a shame because the NFL is the most popular sport in the US and young kids see this behavior and will think that it's okay to be abusive or that bullying is okay because if they're good enough at football, they can get away with it with very little to no punishment. That's a frightening scenario.

I long for the days when the biggest problem was Mike Vick fighting dogs. He went to jail for 18 months for that. He paid a very large price. Peterson, Icognito and Hardy, all they had to suffer was missing games for their horrible crimes. Use that as context for the next time you argue with someone about how the NFL punishes players harsher now than they did 5 or 10 years ago. Mike Vick went to prison. The three guys I mentioned, Hardy being the main culprit, have seen no jail time and they're all considered leaders of their respective teams. That's the state of the NFL today, and that's a crying shame for a sport I, and the rest of the country love.

Get your act together NFL. You're in danger of losing more fans by letting horrible people like these guys stay in the league.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He does not actual enjoy writing about anything the NFL commissioner does, it is quite frustrating. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty does not give a pass to garbage people like Hope Solo

Why the double standard for Hope Solo?

By all accounts she's a garbage person who goes on national TV and lies and then sees no discipline from the US Women's National Soccer team. She blatantly lied and was made to look like the victim when she was the instigator. She physically beat up her sister and her nephew, but when she saw an opportunity for a "redemption" story from the Today Show and ESPN The Magazine, she decided that she could lie herself into looking like a victim. The fact that her nephew is 6'7 and about 280 pounds, who would question her, she has an athlete's body, but she is still smallish. But her sister is much smaller than she is, so why did no one question this at the time. Well, it looks like one (and only one) group in the ESPN family, Outside the Lines, decided it was time to go back and look at the police records and they found quite the treasure trove. Apparently Hope Solo called at least two of the police officers a gay slur, called them 14 year old boys, and when they asked her to remove a necklace, she told them that it was worth more money than they make in a year. Now, I'm not a fan of police officers, especially in the town of Ballwin in St. Louis County, but I have at least the dignity and the respect to not talk to authority like that.

Hope Solo seems to have a  speaking tone like the one employed by trash people who live in the gutter. Why does she think she is so much better than these police officers? Why does she think she can hit people and get away with it? Does she believe she can get away with this type of behavior because she's good at soccer? Spoiler alert, most Americans don't care about soccer. And you're not some world class athlete with sponsorships coming out of your ears. If Outside the Lines hadn't done this story, I wouldn't be able to pick her out of a police lineup, which I'm sure she's been in a ton. This isn't her first domestic abuse case either. She's had at least one other incident that's been reported. So she's had, at the very least, two reported domestic violence cases and yet team USA soccer does nothing in the way of discipline. She gets to travel with the team and play soccer and when reporters ask her about the cases, she deflects the question and says she just wants to talk about soccer. Spoken like someone who's guilty. What Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice did was just as bad. They are both big time athletes, one who knocked his wife out cold in an elevator, the other who beat up his 4 year old child, at least faced some consequences from the NFL. Both of them got suspended, without pay, for an entire season. They did terrible, horrible, unforgivable things to women and children and at least faced some form of discipline. Hell, Ray Rice still has not been signed by a team, because I think, no one wants that kind of PR nightmare. So, I ask the question again, why the double standard for Hope Solo? Yes, she's a woman and there's barely any cases of a woman being the aggressor in domestic disputes but, coming from my mom who works in the social work field, the disputes when they involve a female as the chief instigator are treated the same as when the man is the instigator. And good for Hope Solo's sister for coming out and speaking out in defense of herself and her son. These abusers need to realize that they can't get away with the horrible crimes they are committing by beating people up. You shouldn't stand for it and if someone is abusing you seek professional help. There are people out there to protect you from the Ray Rice's and the Hope Solo's of the world. So, shame on you Hope Solo and USA Women's soccer. You are just helping this horrible person think they can do whatever they want because they are good at a sport.

Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, Hope Solo, and their media enablers disgust me.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor at Seed Sing. Throw him a follow on twitter @tykulik If you are a victim of domestic violence, get help, that is the only way to stop the violence.