This is a slippery slope that the NFL has been going down! They should have come up with some sort of policy, agreed on it with the NFLPA in arbitration. That way they can always just follow the policy and if they get any flack, say it is a collectively bargain policy and they are powerless to change it.
I guess if AH was playing with the 49ers, he would still be eligible to play.
Look, Ray Rice, provided he doesn't get in trouble for the next year, is going to have a clean record! No conviction, nothing, on his job application at McDonald's he can honestly answer "yes" to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?". So waiting for the courts is useless. But let's say for instance Brady is charged with tax evasion next week. Does he get suspended? What felonies are acceptable and which ones are not? Taxes cases are very complicated and take years to adjudicate.
The NFL is in a real pickle here, a pickle of their own making. They have Ray Lewis, who killed a guy, talking like a preacher on ESPN, they have Michael Vick, who killed dogs, playing for the NY Jets. They have Ray Caruth, who had his pregnant girlfriend killed so he wouldn't have to pay the child support. I guess it all depends on what you get filmed doing. The Rice video was terrible and he was rightly released. But imagine if there was video of Vick throwing muts into the ring so his pit bulls could get used to killing. Or better yet, video of him electrocuting the weaker dogs. Imagine if there was video in that ally where Ray Lewis and his buddies killed that guy.
We live in a video age, most things going forward are going to be on video. Within 5 years, every cop on the street is going to be wearing a body camera. On a whole the NFL players are well below the national average for murders and wife beaters, but the problem with acting like you are morally superior is every now and then, people expect you to actually act like it!
The NFL would be better served dumping this whole personal conduct policy. Just suspending players for performance enhancing drugs, and let the teams deal with their own players. Kraft wanted no part of Hernandez once the charges were announced, on the other hand, the Ravens just erected a statue of their AH in front of their stadium.