Darrell Davis: Stopping the violence

There are bad men in football.

Justin Cox is one of those bad men.

He was cut by the Saskatchewan Roughriders following his third arrest for domestic violence. Saskatchewan’s rookie-of-the-year in 2016, Cox’s character had apparently been reviewed by the Roughriders before they recruited him. They saw a good player; they somehow didn’t see the bad man who likes to beat up women.

Maybe it’s because of football’s inherent violence that there seems to be an abundance of players like Ray Rice, Trevis Smith and Greg Hardy, each of whom is now rightfully known more for assaulting women than for their athletic prowess. But there are bad men everywhere. 

Steve Stephens, the Facebook killer in Cleveland, is no worse than Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL player whose involvement in seven murders — and a guilty finding on a first-degree charge — earned him a life sentence.  One just happened to play football. Stephens and Hernandez are dead; they also killed themselves.

Is Justin Cox as bad as Stevens and Hernandez? Yes. He just stopped sooner.