As Raiders receiver Davante Adams waits to hear what the league will do about his post-game shove of an employee who made the mistake of crossing paths with Adams at a time when he was: (1) very frustrated; and (2) walking toward the locker room, more details are emerging.
The man was a freelance employee working for ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Networks routinely hire local residents to assist with the game-day operation, to supplement the direct employees who go from stadium to stadium and city to city, week after week.
This gives ESPN a clear interest in ensuring that its employees, whether permanent or temporary, will be protected against such interactions while doing their jobs. Although the networks sometimes tread lightly when it comes to potential confrontations with the league, the protection of the network’s employees should be a priority.
If ESPN is upset about the situation, ESPN isn’t voicing its concerns publicly. Even if the network opts to steer clear of pointing a finger at Adams, the Raiders, or the league, ESPN should consider issuing a statement of support for its employee, even if it’s something along the lines of “our representative did nothing wrong.”
For its part, the NFL has bigger concerns. Having players knocking bystanders to the ground creates a real liability issue. And it’s more than the actions of Adams. What did Arrowhead Stadium security personnel do or fail to do regarding the challenge of controlling the inherent chaos of the post-game scene at a stadium? What can be done in the future to prevent similar situations?
Adams is the primary wrongdoer here, for shoving a guy who was simply trying to do his job to the ground. But if a better sense of order had been instilled by the people responsible for creating some semblance of order had put procedures in place to properly manage the flow of bodies, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
However the NFL handles this situation, it makes sense to take a broad and comprehensive view of what happened and how it happened, in order to keep it from happening again.