The NFL has a trust problem.

Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe Americans will just keep watching games, setting our fantasy lineups and throwing down beers to wash the week away. If there was a smart bet, actually, it would be on this exact thing happening after the NFL is done recoiling from the colossal mess it has made of the Ray Rice investigation.

But maybe it does matter because, honestly — strangely — this is the first time we've really looked at the NFL with the kind of glance that says, "eh, maybe we don't really need this?" And we don't think we're alone.

It didn't happen with other scandals. We said "strangely" in that last paragraph because it probably should have happened to us with all the news of brain injuries and how the NFL has handled that. But it didn't. Maybe this feels more front-and-center. Maybe, as we've noted before, perceptions change when you become a father. Maybe there's just enough outrageous behavior and concrete evidence mixed with suspicion that the league is making things up as it goes along — ingredients that make it impossible to ignore.

If you never questioned the NFL before, that has likely changed. If you had a vague distrust of the league before, that has likely escalated. And if you've been suspicious of the league for a while, you are ready to welcome others onto the bandwagon.

The league says until this week it never saw the full tape of Rice knocking his then-fiance out with a punch on an elevator. The AP refutes that with a source, and anything the NFL says beyond that is flimsy at best.

The league says it will conduct an independent investigation of the handling of this entire matter … and then names TWO NFL OWNERS as the ones who will oversee it.

As Alec Sulkin tweeted perfectly, "I wonder if the NFL will let the NFL get away with this."

The NFL couldn't have gotten the tape if it wanted to because it was illegal? Wrong again!

If you dig a hole deep enough, maybe you wind up back at the top?

It stands to reason that we shouldn't believe anything the NFL has said or done up to this point in this matter. And that calls into question whether we should ever believe anything league says or does ever again.

That's a trust problem. Can we still support a league we don't trust? Can we separate the failures at the top from the game that is so ingrained in us? Should we even want to?

Those are questions we will legitimately struggle with going forward.