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Florida State announced Wednesday that starting quarterback Jameis Winston has been suspended for the first half of the No. 1 Seminoles' game vs. Clemson on Saturday for yelling an "offensive and vulgar" phrase in the student union on FSU's campus. Deadspin collected a number of tweets from Florida State students who said they saw Winston standing on a table Tuesday "screaming" the phrase (one made popular by a series of recent viral hoax videos), which uses graphic sexual language. (Both links use the phrase and other R-rated language.)

The National Football League’s had a tough first three weeks of the season. The league made the news again Tuesday when New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, introduced legislation that would put an end to the league’s tax-exempt status. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, also reportedly plans to introduce legislation eliminating the league’s status. While Booker was pushed by the league’s handling of players involved with domestic violence, Cantwell is looking at the the NFL’s lack of force to get Washington to change its highly criticized name. Cantwell, also former chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee...

This statement was released Tuesday afternoon from the law firm of Melchert, Hubert, Sjodin, P.L.L.P., representing the mother of the boy who is the subject of the Adrian Peterson indictment:

Week 3 Thursday, Sept. 18 Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Atlanta Falcons, 8:25 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21 San Diego Chargers vs. Buffalo Bills, 1 p.m. Dallas Cowboys vs. St. Louis Rams, 1 p.m. Washington Redskins vs. Philadelphia Eagles, 1 p.m. Houston Texans vs. New York Giants, 1 p.m. Minnesota Vikings vs. New Orleans Saints, 1 p.m. Tennessee Titans vs. Cincinnati Bengals, 1 p.m. Baltimore Ravens vs. Cleveland Browns, 1 p.m. Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions, 1 p.m. Indianapolis Colts vs. Jacksonville Jaguars, 1 p.m. Oakland Raiders vs. New England Patriots, 1 p.m. San Francisco 49ers vs. Arizona Cardinals, 4:05 p.m....

A Dallas bar owner is taking a stand against the NFL, pledging not to show any games this season in response to the league’s recent domestic abuse incidents. Jack Mac’s Swill & Grill in far north Dallas announced the decision on Facebook on Monday:

Sept 16 (Reuters) - Anheuser-Busch publicly chastised the National Football League on Tuesday for its handling of domestic violence cases, making the NFL's official beer sponsor the first major advertiser to put pressure on America's most popular sports league. In a brief but strongly worded statement, Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser and NFL official beer Bud Light, said it was "disappointed and increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season. "We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code."

Anheuser-Busch, one of the NFL’s biggest sponsors, says it isn’t happy with the recent controversy that has engulfed the league. […] The league has come under fire for its handling of former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s assault of his then-fiancée. The Minnesota Vikings have also been criticized for allowing Adrian Peterson to play while he faces a charge of abuse for spanking his 4-year-old son with a wooden switch. …

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) will introduce legislation aimed at eliminating the NFL's tax-exempt status, she announced at a press conference on Tuesday. Cantwell's motivation for introducing the legislation is the league's continued inaction against the Washington Redskins name. “The NFL needs to join the rest of Americans in the 21st century,” she said, according to The Washington Post. “It is about right and wrong.” The press conference was called by the Native American coalition Change the Mascot, which has sent a letter to 31 NFL owners urging them to take action that could lead to the Redskins name being changed.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Monday called on the National Football League to increase its domestic violence penalties following the release of a video allegedly showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his now-wife. His statement Monday afternoon came minutes after the Ravens announced that the team had terminated Rice’s contract and around the time that an NFL official announced the league had suspended the player indefinitely. “It shouldn’t take a video to do the right thing,” the Connecticut Democrat wrote on Twitter. “I commend @Ravens but urge @nflcommish to act on harsher penalties for domestic abuse.” Earlier on Monday,...

At a time of unprecedented public scrutiny that will serve only to attract further interest of the folks who have a habit of looking for causes to support that will score points with the public, the NFL has hired a new lobbyist. The press release doesn’t describe former Deputy Assistant to the President and Counsel to the Vice President of the United States Cynthia Hogan as a lobbyist. But that’s what she’ll be. And lobbyists work their contacts aggressively within the political universe to advance the causes of their clients. (Officially, Hogan is the NFL’s Senior Vice President of Public...

The officials blew the game big time in the fourth quarter of the Colts versus Eagles game, most notably on a huge non-call of defensive holding. You never want to be those fans. You never want to be those fans that blame the officiating for the loss. Let's face it: every fanbase thinks that their team were the victims of some cheap calls that hurt them. Every fanbase is the same, and each week is no different. That's why I generally try to stay away from criticizing the officials too much. Tonight, however, is different. Tonight, whether you're a Colts...

The NFL is hiring four women to serve as advisers in shaping the league's stance on domestic violence, according to a memo from commissioner Roger Goodell to the 32 NFL owners sent Monday. The full memo, via Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal, can be read here. The gist of it is that the league attempting to change the outside perception of how it handles domestic violence and, hopefully, an earnest effort to change the actual process internally.

...Confirms She’s One of World’s Biggest Airheads Progressive Rosie O’Donnell, previously fired from The View, but now brought back in hopes of improving ratings from ABC’s all-female hosted talk show, debuted for the second time on Monday to bash the NFL, strongly inferring that football players, who play a physical game are not capable of separating the “violence” from their personal lives. Using the recent news of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson as a springboard to further the left’s war against football, O’Donnell, acting as an expert on how the “human brain works,” said: “They live in an arena of...

High powered backing for former Secretary of State to rescue America’s most popular sport Support is growing for a campaign to draft Condoleezza Rice as Commissioner for the troubled National Football League (NFL). American football, the country’s most popular sport and a bastion of macho male culture, has suffered one of the worst weeks in its history with three high-profile stars facing accusations of domestic violence. The crisis has led to calls for Ms Rice, a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan, to step in replace the beleaguered Roger Goodell as Commissioner. As far back as 2002 Ms Rice described becoming NFL...

Although there seems to be an endless stream of stories about NFL player arrests and misconduct, this is largely because there are a lot of NFL players (and they’re famous). At the league’s peak (during training camps), there are about 2,560 players attached to NFL teams (limit 80 each). As I’ll show, arrest rates among NFL players are quite low compared to national averages for men in their age range — but there are some types of crimes that trail the pack significantly.

“Shocking Video!!!” This week the news and sports media, on behalf of those who need help with two plus two, revealed there are two kinds of domestic violence: The not-too-bad, the kind described only in words and a cost-you-only-two-games video of a woman being dragged from an elevator, and … The shocking, throw-the-bum-out kind, as seen in this week’s inside-the-elevator, what-happened-in-Atlantic City-didn’t-quite-stay-there Ray Rice video. Some of us, however, know better than to be shocked by common sense. After all, how else did the soon-to-be Mrs. Rice, as seen months ago in the first surveillance video, become unconscious, left for...

Ever since the Ray Rice elevator video went public, Morning Joe has been in a state of sustained moral outrage over the NFL's mishandling of the issue of domestic violence. All well and good. But things turned testy this morning when a New York Times reporter turned the tables on Joe and Mika. When Mika Brzezinski suggested that sponsors should boycott the NFL, Alan Schwarz asked if Joe and Mika should march into the office of the NBC Chairman and demand that the network stop supporting the NFL by broadcasting its Sunday night games. After first jokingly suggesting that the...

On ESPN’s “SportsCenter” earlier this week, espnW columnist Kate Fagan argued that the big picture in the controversy surrounding former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s domestic violence allegations. According Fagan, the problem needs to be tackled at the so-called grassroots level when men are in their formative years. “Well, I think right now we're talking so much about firing Goodell or punishments. You know, should it be a three game, a two game, a six game, a full year ban? But I think that's a little reactive and not proactive. Domestic violence is something that happens in anger, in...

Starting off with the Ray Rice elevator knock-out incident.After the abuse Janay went through,you would assume she would of filed for divorce.But obviously we all know why she wont leave him.Janay probably has no real skills/talent where she could just walk away and move on with her life.Just like with Elin Woods and Huma Weiner.Three completely different scenarios,but in the end they all stayed with their scandalous husbands.My Man Could Of Killed Me In The Elevator!,but that's OK,he has a lot of money,therefore he gets a pass,I forgive him.No Big Deal.And another perfect example of a high profile woman not...

What is happening to us, and what can we do about it? Confronting violence starts with confronting our anxiety about it.I know, the world is a violent place. But doesn’t this summer, and the last few weeks, seem especially so? From the global scene to the most personal, we seem to have settled for violence as the “new normal” at every level. This week, we observed the 13th anniversary of 9/11. That terrible day affected all of us, each of us being able to describe where we were and what we felt as the Trade Center towers fell. Yet, 13...