For the Seattle Seahawks, domestic violence charges would have made Frank Clark untouchable.
At least until those charges went away.
The agent for the former Michigan defensive end said that the Seahawks told Clark at the Scouting Combine in February the charges of hitting his ex-girlfriend would have taken him off their draft board.
“If he has these charges pending, we won’t draft him,” agent Erik Burkhardt recalled being told by the Seahawks, via Tom Pelissero of USA Today.
Of course, after the combine, he pleaded down to a fourth-degree misdemeanor charge of persistent disorderly conduct. He was fined $250 and $100 in court costs and went to counseling.
The decision has drawn plenty of fire, as you might imagine in a post Ray Rice/Greg Hardy NFL.
The Seahawks have been criticized, as well as the prosecutor who said she didn’t see evidence that Clark hit the woman.
“It was not what I refer to as a battering or domestic violence situation,” Lynne Gast-King, the municipal prosecutor for Sandusky, Ohio said. “It was a verbal argument that went into a physical argument that spiraled out of control, and both parties had their part in this. . . .
“We need to reserve the heaviest level of the law for those people who truly are batterers and the victims who have no way out of these abusive relationships. I am supposed to protect the victim and the public, and I think we have done that.
“If the NFL doesn’t like it, that’s really not what I’m worried about.”
While her staunch stance might have helped, the Seahawks did their own work.
They talked to Clark’s attorney and counselor, and brought him in for a visit and sat him down with their own sports psychologists. They sent one of their area scouts to Ann Arbor for two days specifically to dig into the case. What they found was the same story other teams heard: An argument turned physical when the woman threw something at him, and Clark restrained her, but never hit her.
That’s not consistent with the version in the police report, and it’s not a story many will buy at face value.
But the Seahawks were willing to give him a chance, putting their reputations on the line for his.