What happened to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s “No Fun League” everyone was getting so accustomed to?”We hold ourselves to higher standards of responsible conduct because of what it means to be part of the National Football League,” Goodell said in a 2007 interview with USA Today. When Goodell took over as NFL commissioner in 2006, he brought a tough-as-nails approach to the athletes’ off-field antics that drew praise from all sorts of law-abiding, justice-seeking folk.The result of this approach was the implementation of the NFL’s personal conduct policy in April 2007.Goodell suspended four players during his first year on the job — one of them for more than an entire football season.Adam “Pacman” Jones and Chris Henry were the first to feel the hammer.Jones was suspended an entire season for general thug-like behavior. Henry was suspended for eight games for similar behavior.A suspension forced Tank Johnson to sit out four games for a litany of transgressions.Michael Vick was Goodell’s biggest victim. He’s still suspended indefinitely since his involvement with dog fighting. But Goodell has dropped the ball lately in terms of punishing players who have tarnished the league’s image.A few guys’ screwups have gone unpunished and are seriously making Goodell’s earliest punishments look like kneejerk reactions to public outcries generated by the athletes’ actions.The most egregious of these offenders is Donte’ Stallworth.Stallworth hit and killed 59-year-old Mario Reyes last month in Miami while driving drunk, according to a Miami Beach police report. The report said Reyes was not on the crosswalk on McArthur Causeway — a usually busy road — when Stallworth hit him with his black 2005 Bently. Stallworth was only charged with driving under the influence and second-degree manslaughter. If it were me, it would probably be a harsher charge — but that’s another issue.If Stallworth’s actions don’t fit under the category of something the league should punish, I don’t know what does. A man is dead because Stallworth chose to get behind the wheel after he had too much to drink.The NFL hasn’t moved at all on this matter since it was reported.Goodell needs to get his act together. It’s unacceptable for Vick to be indefinitely suspended for killing a few dogs and Stallworth to still be allowed to play after killing a human.I’m not anti-dog or pro-Vick. It just doesn’t seem right.It’s not as if the league has to wait on a conviction in the legal system before it hands down a punishment.Jones was never convicted on any of the felony charges he had against him, and it didn’t seem to matter.Maybe it’s because the pressure was on Goodell to act because every pet lover in America was speaking out against Vick. Or maybe it was PETA staging protests outside league headquarters that made him act quickly.Maybe if Mothers Against Drunk Driving were to write some letters and stage some protests, Stallworth would get his indefinite suspension as well.Anything less would be ridiculous.Another athlete that needs some punishment is Plaxico Burress.In November, the ex-Giants receiver suffered a bullet wound in his right thigh after accidentally discharging a gun he carried in his sweatpants.Burress lacked a concealed weapons permit.In no reality should it be acceptable for someone to carry a gun into a nightclub and not have a license for it. Thank goodness it was only himself he shot. This man needs a pretty lengthy suspension to teach him a lesson.Then there’s Matt Jones.Matt Jones was arrested and charged with felony possession of a controlled substance last summer after police found six grams of cocaine and a jar with possible marijuana residue in a car he was occupying.Jones was never punished by the conduct policy and only was issued a three-game suspension because of a separate substance abuse policy.Goodell should have handed down a suspension of his own as well.Not acting on these three athletes sends a dangerous message to players that they can have some pretty major screwups and not have to answer to their employer.Someone needs to keep these athletes in check and restore the NFL to what it was two years ago — a place where if you screwed up, you paid.   
—-Contact Johanathan Brooks at [email protected]