By Kia Tyus

Personally, I am sick of celebrities getting special treatment for felony type crimes.

Ray Rice went into a drunken rage against his wife. He punched her and dragged her out of the elevator. Let’s be honest, we all saw the video. Rice came forward and told the National Football League (NFL) what he did. The NFL chose to cover up a superstar and now Rice has won his appeal and can be signed to any team in the NFL.

Multiple NFL players have been suspended for failing drug test and substance abuse test. Yet, they only get suspended for a few games then, they return to the field as if nothing has happened.

Gregg Rosenthal wrote an article about Josh Brent returning to the Dallas Cowboys.

Last year, Dallas Cowboys Josh Brent was involved in a drunken car crash that killed former Dallas Cowboys and best friend Jerry Brown.

A regular civilian would have been sentenced to multiple years in prison as well as a lengthy probation afterwards. Not in the case of Jerry Brown.

Jerry Brown instead was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years of probation. Now, Brown has recently been reinstated with the Cowboys and can play Sunday. Also, Brown has been practicing recently with the team.

I understand that everyone should receive a second chance. But, I feel as though the NFL’s and the laws priorities are not in order. Michael Vick went to prison for participating in dog fighting, but he wasn’t the ones actually fighting the dog.

Yet, a guy who was drunk behind the wheel of a car is not only returning to the Cowboys, but signed a contract extension that will last to 2015. The Cowboys felt that Brent would be an asset to Dallas’s rush defense.

The way that the Rosenthal article was edited further gave me the impression that the NFL doesn’t really believe in punishing the players even if the law let’s the players get off. I think that the NFL needs to increase their punishments for breaking the rules. Players simply aren’t taking them seriously because they know that their punishment won’t be that severe.