Point taken. But I don't think Gilbert Godfrey is as crucial to Afflac's success as a starting running back is to an NFL team... but then again that's only my opinion
*Gottfried.
And it doesn't matter, because the NFL has its own rules, both codified and unwritten, for how to handle controversial players. None of those rules set a precedent for cutting or trading a player simply for making a stupid and/or controversial public statement that poses no risk of impacting the team's bottom line or compromising the integrity of the game.
All major pro sports leagues routinely punish players for making statements in public that impugn league officials; teams have the right to punish players for causing conflicts within the organization. But no league or team-sanctioned punishment has ever been handed down for making controversial statements that bore no relevance to league or team business.
If the Steelers punish Mendenhall for this, it sets a very risky precedent. It starts at outlandish and morally questionable tweets that paint the player himself in a bad light and offend large swaths of the population... but what comes after that? Will players be subject to punishment for making political statements that clash with the views of management?
A number of Green Bay Packers showed solidarity with public sector employees in Wisconsin who were protesting the union-stripping bill there. The Packers are unique in that they're publicly-owned, but the majority of NFL owners are slightly to the right of Augusto Pinochet politically, so if these were any other team's players, odds are that they would've ruffled the feathers of the man signing their paychecks by their actions.
And let's not forget that even though it's currently decertified on account of the lockout, the NFL has a very powerful players union that would fight tooth and nail against any sort of player 'speech codes' being put in place. The last thing the league wants right now is to add fuel to the fire of the ongoing labor strife.
As I said before, if the threshold was simply saying something boneheaded to the press [or in tweets], the Steelers would've parted ways with James Harrison [who, despite his accolades, is every bit as expendable as Mendenhall because of the style of defense the Steelers play] over a year ago. He made statements that not only reflected badly on him, but also risked reprisals from other teams against his teammates for his head-hunting style of play, which he refused to back down from.
