With the NFL Draft upcoming, teams are debating what to do about former Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon, who was suspended for a year by the Sooners for punching a woman in the face and breaking her jaw.
Mixon apologized in December, but New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that is not enough, and that the Patriots won’t draft him, according to the Boston Herald.
“While I believe in second chances and giving players an opportunity for redemption, I also believe that playing in the NFL is a privilege, not a right,” Kraft told the Herald. “For me, personally, I believe that privilege is lost for men who have a history of abusing women.”
Of course, the Patriots probably couldn’t draft Mixon even if they wanted to, so this could be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Mixon is likely to go in the first two rounds of the draft, when the Patriots don’t have a first or second round pick. However, Kraft has long been against signing players accused of domestic violence.
Kraft and his wife, Myra, demanded Peter be released in the days following the 1996 draft. Bill Parcells selected the Nebraska defensive tackle who had been accused of a long list of violent crimes against women, and the Krafts learned of those allegations shortly after the draft.
In 2014, Kraft also said the Patriots wouldn’t sign running back Ray Rice, who had been suspended by the NFL and released by the Ravens after he punched his soon-to-be wife in an Atlantic City casino elevator. Rice never landed another NFL job.
That said, the Patriots don’t shy away from character issues in general. They’ve signed Aaron Hernandez, LaGarrette Blount, Albert Haynesworth and Brandon Meriweather. It appears that domestic violence, however, is Kraft’s sticking point.
