The NFL has reopened its investigation, the Giants have closed the door on his trip to England, and the union has opted for silence. For now.
The NFL Players Association has no comment (yet) on recent developments regarding kicker Josh Brown. Information obtained by the media demonstrates that Brown’s domestic violence issues extended far beyond a supposedly isolated incident in May 2015, and now the NFL and the Giants are commencing the process of taking enhanced action against Brown -- months after the league imposed a mere one-game suspension.
Some will call on the union to discipline or to condemn Brown on its own, but that’s not how labor unions operate. The NFLPA has an absolute obligation under federal law to defend Brown’s rights. The union is his paid representative, and if he chooses to fight further discipline from the league and/or the team, the union has no choice but to defend him.
Brown has rights. He already has been punished once for domestic violence, under circumstances where the league and the Giants had limited information, due to their own incomplete efforts (wilful or otherwise) to get to the truth. Forced by the efforts of the media to get to the truth, the league and the team are now being shamed into doing more.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. By all appearances, the league and the team wanted to look the other way, and so they did. Now that their eyes have been pried open, Clockwork Orange-style, they have no choice but to take action, from a P.R. standpoint.
Brown should have received a more stringent punishment in the first place. The league and/or the team, in potential violation of his rights, will try to impose further punishment on him -- not because of anything new he did, but because facts about which they should have known are suddenly news to them.
Thus, the union can and should fight any further effort to discipline Brown, both for his sake and for the sake of any other player who may find himself in this situation in the future. As the team and the Giants stumble through a potential minefield of CBA violations, it makes no sense for the union to say anything that would cause management to figure out a way to punish Brown without violating his rights.