Diminishes the discussion? The point, which I thought I made clear, was with hazing that which is acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to another. I don't claim to know what the right side of that argument is, but I also do not claim some paternalistic notion of right and wrong in how professional football players conduct themselves. My point was do not confuse what Incognito did with these traditional issues.
Neither you, I, nor anybody else who has not been a part of an NFL team has any clue of how those traditional actions are received by the individuals on those teams. Bringing the anti-dodgeball mentality to the discussion of professional NFL athletes, I suspect many of whom are supremely confident in who they are after years of athletic success, is something of a stretch. These guys tend to be trained to tear each others' heads off in physical clashes, and do not tend to whimper in corners when booed by thousands of fans who hate them and their teams. There is no "special trier" award in football. You play the game better than your competition, or your career is over. That is the attitude of these athletes, as described in every article on high profile veteran cuts.
And as for Dez Bryant, he is an adult. Many NFL players are not particularly bright. I seriously doubt there is much discussion of social darwinism, Friedrich Nietzsche, or natural law theory in the lockerroom. And in the event you missed it, professional sports and entertainment generally are rife with individuals frittering away millions on expenses that have nothing to do with dinners. Antoine Walker didn't spend $110 million on rookie dinners. T.O.? $80 million to nothing in a career. Dez Bryant is not unique in his spending habits, so let's not paint him as a professional sports anomaly and lament the $30k or $50k frittered away in an evening. If he wants to spend his money on a dinner rather than on another high end sports car, and he doesn't take issue with that expenditure, who are you or anybody else to question if that is acceptable under a paternalistic sense of propriety? If it doesn't bother him to spend millions, then it shouldn't bother you that he spends it. He isn't your ward, and frankly I doubt you are sitting there with $2.5 million in the palm of your hand at his age thinking "I would really hate it if somebody made me pay for a $54,000 dinner bill." The fact you preach sound fiscal decisions does not mean that concept means boo to him, and it is only when it subjectively bothers him that these traditions become problematic. That is when traditions become detrimental to a team and to individuals on that team. That line, as the military continues to learn, is very difficult to draw, and often means foregoing traditions that build comradery for some utterly forgettable substitute that few will recall and ultimately does not instill a sense of belonging to a unique brotherhood.
