It would have been so much easier on the Giants if they simply parted ways with Josh Brown.
Heck, they did not even have to waive him. His contract had run out. If they did not bring him back, there would not have been a great investigation.
Sure, Brown made 30-of-32 field-goal attempts last season — a franchise-record 93.8 percent — but he is 37 years old, and, lest we forget, he is a kicker. The Giants could have moved on, explained that they wanted to get younger, and cheaper, and be done with him.
Yet on April 18 they re-signed Josh Brown, giving him a two-year, $4 million contract, knowing full well he had been arrested in May 2015 and charged with fourth-degree domestic violence — charges that were dropped five days later. The Giants knew of the many allegations put forth by his ex-wife, Molly Brown, contained in an incident report, of the more than 20 examples she cited of physical abuse.
The Giants say they knew it all, and they went forward and re-signed Josh Brown, knowing this would all come to the surface, that their decision to stick with their kicker would have to stand up to intense scrutiny and possible NFL discipline, that this could possibly brand the New York Football Giants as soft on domestic violence, as uncaring, and consumed with winning at all costs.
John Mara knew all this when he signed off on the return of Josh Brown, 37-year-old kicker, an expendable part the Giants’ co-owner could have easily discarded, deemed too much trouble to keep around.
“I am painfully aware of that,’’ Mara said Wednesday, standing on a patio overlooking the practice fields, where his team was working in the bright sunshine. “I have four daughters and seven sisters, and I know I have to face each one of them. These are not easy decisions. It is very easy to say, ‘The guy has been accused, get rid of him, terminate him.’ But when you are sitting at the top of an organization and you are responsible for a lot of people, you better make more informed decisions than that.’’
The Giants stuck with Brown because they believe jettisoning him would have been unfair, that he is not a miscreant, that he was involved in a bad marriage and made mistakes and, currently in counseling, he is not a threat to anyone.
Mara spoke publicly about the matter several days later than he should have. Brown was suspended Aug. 17 for the season opener for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. Mara should not have waited a full week before explaining why the Giants stuck with Brown. Seven days in a hot-take, knee-jerk social media-crazed society might as well be seven weeks. Silence, in this case, was not golden.
“Truthfully I probably should have done it a couple of days ago,’’ Mara said.
The delay spawned a rash of incendiary venom directed at Mara and the Giants, though the devil in these details largely was unknown.
“I spent the last 20 some odd years working on these cases,’’ Karen Cheeks-Lomax, CEO of My Sisters’ Place in White Plains, told The Post. “We’ve seen some things that are very difficult to hear. It is complicated, and for a variety of reasons people decide not to go forward or to go forward, children are involved and families are involved, it can be very complicated and challenging.’’
Complicated is not easy, not clean, not, as Mara said, black and white. The Giants have worked with My Sisters’ Place — an organization providing services to empower survivors of domestic violence — for the last 19 years, training players and team personnel about the signs and symptoms of domestic abuse.
“Unfortunately these things are happening in our world. I’ve seen it all too often,’’ Cheeks-Lomax said.
Why in the world would the NFL, given the way the league has been (often rightly) raked over the coals for its handling of so many off-the-field issues, go out of its way to hand down a mere one-game ban to Brown when they could have nailed him for six games? That the league did not speaks volumes as to what those who looked deeply into this sad situation uncovered — and what was not uncovered.
It is clear why Mara preferred to allow the action of the team to speak for itself. By defending his player, Mara says he did not want to disparage the allegations of Molly Brown, or the serious nature of domestic abuse. That would come off as insensitive. No doubt many hear Mara’s words and are disappointed, at best, or revolted.
“Of course, I know John very well,’’ Cheeks-Lomax said. “He and the Mara family have been very, very supportive of the agency and are committed to this issue and have been for the last two decades. I do believe he is sincere. I do believe that, and I do believe he is committed to this issue.’’
This is all cringe-worthy to anyone who has a wife, or daughter, or sister, but what about those who have a husband, or son, or brother? They, too, have the right not to be swept away in a tsunami of insinuation and deprived of a livelihood because the mob demands it.
“I’m trying to be fair to Josh, also,’’ Mara said. “I think he’s trying to do the right thing. He deserves an opportunity to show he can do that.’’
Some would say he does not deserve that opportunity. Mara is staking his family’s good name that Josh Brown deserves to stay. Have Mara and the Giants made this decision with compassion in their hearts?
“The answer to that is yes,’’ said Cheeks-Lomax, defender of those embroiled in domestic violence. “I think John Mara believes in that, yes.’’