Souhan: Too big to fail? Bad week unlikely to dethrone NFL

If recent history is predictive, the most disgusting week in NFL history will culminate Sunday with a certain number of fans attending a publicly funded stadium in Minneapolis proudly wearing the jersey of a man accused of beating a 4-year-old bloody.

This week we learned one in three NFL players suffer brain damage caused by football. We learned Ray Rice was given preferential treatment by a New Jersey prosecutor after knocking out his now wife in an elevator and that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell treated Rice more leniently than marijuana smokers even after Rice admitted to Goodell that he threw the punch.

We watched a certain number of Baltimore Ravens fans, including women, show up for a game on Thursday night wearing Rice's jersey, or the jersey of Terrell Suggs, whose wife has sought two protective orders against him and accused him of beating her and pouring bleach on her and their son.

We learned Goodell, a man who is paid roughly $44 million a year to protect the NFL's image, either botched the investigation and discipline of Rice or is lying about it.

We learned the owner of a team using a racial slur as its name thought he was doing Goodell a favor by publicly supporting the commissioner. We were reminded, because of Rice, that Greg Hardy continues to play for the Carolina Panthers despite being found guilty in July of assaulting and threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and that the 49ers' Ray McDonald continues to play despite being accused of domestic violence.

Finally, we learned Adrian Peterson, the Vikings' biggest star, is accused of taking a "switch'' and severely beating a 4-year-old.

Could this week become a tipping point?

This league has survived lawsuits from players damaged by football-inflicted concussions. It has survived a former player, Dave Duerson, taking his own life by shooting himself in the chest so scientists could examine a brain he was certain had been destroyed by the game. (Scientists would confirm his fears.)

The league has survived a procession of players committing violent crimes.

The natural reaction to these stories is shock. Unless you spend five minutes researching NFL history. Then this week begins to sound like business as usual.

The NFL has always celebrated on-field violence, hidden the effects of that violence on its players and mishandled or eschewed the disciplining of player violence away from the field.

The NFL has always been a sickening business. Because it has become the greatest financial success story in the history of North American sports, it has never been forced to change.

The NFL may be too big to fail.

In recent years, the league has sought to extend its popularity. It has staged games in London. It has tried to appeal to females, with breast cancer awareness initiatives and women's cut souvenir jerseys and an apparel line called "It's My Team.''

Perhaps the only fallout for the league after this brutal week could be a diminished enthusiasm for it among women.

Informed mothers have already begun debating whether their children should risk their brains by playing youth or high school football.

Now women have reason to ask why they should support a business that, historically, has displayed little regard for the health and safety of women. Peterson's alleged acts would give women reason to question why they should support a business that employs so many people who hurt women and children.

Probably not.

Most of those likely to be offended by violence and deceit would have turned away long ago.