Angelo: Hundreds of domestic disputes ignored

Jerry Angelo has made a startling admission. (Getty Images)

The NFL has mostly stumbled since the Ray Rice news broke and the important issue of domestic violence came to the forefront for the league. Although commissioner Roger Goodell attempted to fix his initial response by acknowledging that he had made a mistake and overhauling the punishment system for those involved in domestic violence, there's little question that the league has not been proactive around these issues.

Maybe even more so than we originally thought.

Jerry Angelo, the Bears general manager from 2001-11, told USA Today that NFL teams did not discipline "hundreds and hundreds" of domestic violence incidents during the three decades he worked in the NFL.

"I made a mistake,'' Jerry Angelo told the newspaper. "I was human. I was part of it. I'm not proud of it."

Frankly, it's a staggering admission for a league that continues to look hopelessly and willfully uncaring about its employees and their families.

Angelo said his response when he heard about a domestic violence incident was to ask, "OK, is everybody OK? Yeah. How are they doing? Good. And then we'd just move on. We'd move on."

"We knew it was wrong," Angelo said. "…For whatever reason, it just kind of got glossed over. I'm no psychiatrist, so I can't really get into what that part of it is. I'm just telling you how I was. I've got to look at myself first. And I was part of that, but I didn't stand alone."

Angelo, who hasn't been with the league since he was fired from Chicago after the 2011 season, said he's come forward now because he was distraught by the Ray Rice video.

He also said he didn't involve the NFL at the time of these incidents because he didn't want his players punished.

"Our business is to win games," Angelo said. "We've got to win games, and the commissioner's job is to make sure the credibility of the National Football League is held in the highest esteem. But to start with that, you have to know who's representing the shield. ... We got our priorities a little out of order."

As for Goodell, Angelo said "he would never cover anything up," but when talking about the league's inability to procure the Rice elevator tape, Angelo said it appeared as if the league was "just trying to cover [its] ass."

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