The NFL’s chief disciplinary officer acknowledged the league’s limitations in investigating off-field incidents, but B. Todd Jones said the “ownership commitment . . . is not going to back off.”
“We will deal with these situations when they come up, fully aware that they may come up again because of the dynamics of the information gathering and some of the things that you saw an example of last week about when we get information and how it’s obtained,” Jones said at the league’s annual meetings in Irving, Texas.
The league’s limitations were revealed Nov. 30 when TMZ released a video of Kareem Hunt the NFL’s investigative team couldn’t get. The NFL then placed the running on the Commissioner Exempt list, and the Chiefs waived Hill.
“I don’t think it’s lost on anybody here that our investigative capacity is limited,” Jones said. “I think you saw an example of that last week with a private entity releasing a video we could not get. I’ll leave what’s going on with those investigations as they are open. The investigation involving Mr. Hunt is open, and there are multiple investigations open, and we’re not going to say anything about it, because he is in essence a free agent with a disciplinary matter under consideration. With respect to Mr. [Reuben] Foster, he was involved in an arrest, and that’s an investigation that is open and as a result of his criminal proceeding, he’s on the Commissioner Exempt list. So you’ve got two players not playing in the NFL right now who have had serious allegations, and when we get information, we act on it.
“I think the bottom line for us in terms of our investigative processes is we work very diligently to implement all of the recommendations that Bob Mueller made three years ago that we have processes, protocols, professional investigators out there doing the best they can to collect information. But you all are in the information business, too, and you know there is information out there in this surveillance society that we can’t get when we need it, and when we get it, we act on it. . . . The ownership commitment to what occurred in 2014 [with the Ray Rice video] is not going to back off.”
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones argued during an owners-only meeting in March 2017 that the league should get out of the business of investigating player misconduct. Other owners reportedly have come to see the NFL’s investigations -- or attempts thereof -- the same way Jones does.
Before the Rice video surfaced in 2014, the NFL relied on the criminal justice system to discipline players.