KinesProf":35fi747k said:
:roll: Of course there's lawyers involved now. We live in such an over-litigious society.
I'd say settle it on the field like men; but Rudolph's sorry ass is gonna be stuck to the bench.
Both players basically need to be men about this at this point.
Garrett got six games suspended of an INDEFINITE suspension. That's not the NFL dissing him, it's the NFL giving him a break. He then responds to that with a ESPN interview that doesn't focus on what he's done to stay ready during his suspension, or the humanitarian work he has done, or what he's working on to be a better DE in 2020. Nope, he responds by intimating that the NFL might be hiding things and that Rudolph was lying about something neither can prove.
At this point, Rudolph needed to respond, and that response should have been something like "I regret and took responsibility for this situation. Saying a racial slur was not part of it" and left it at that. Instead, his lawyer/agent escalates this AGAIN by saying it's civil defamation that could be sued over.
Rudolph is a public figure, and as such needs to prove 1) unequivocally that what was said was untrue; and additionally 2) saying so was primarily to try to hurt Rudolph (as opposed to saving Garrett's own butt). Unlikely to happen, and if it did would probably cost most of Rudolph's dead-cap hit to depo and put investigators on other players, on teams and on the league itself. Not only the cost, but it's a terrible career move.
Both men need to be men, say that there's differences in their understanding of what happened, and that they both welcome being focused on football in 2020. That's it.