3 longest bans the NFL has placed on players in league history
The NFL, like all other sporting organizations, hands out punishments to its players, coaches and teams for indescresions. From suspensions that last a game, four games and sometimes an entire season, the league has protocols in place for certain situations.
Some can simply be fines to a player, coach, or organization for a minor incident, but what about the ones that bring the league into disreptue or question the integrity of the NFL? When that happens, the bans can be severe.
So what are the three longest bans the NFL has placed on players in its long and storied history?
#3 - Frank Flichock - Lifetime ban
One thing that all leagues try and protect with the full force of money and lawyers etc is the integrity of the entire competition. For the NFL, a global icon of the sports world and some say the biggest sport on the planet, integrity is number one on the list of things to protect.
Now that #DezCaughtIt I want releases from the committee that Rice fumbled, Eric Wright didnt hold Art Monk, Butch Johnson didn't catch it, Frenchy Fuqua touched it first, Jerry Kramer was offsides, Frank Flichock WAS paid by the mob, and the Giants can't change shoes at halftime
Frank Flichock was a New York Giants quarterback back in 1947 and did the unspeakable. The quarterback was found to have accepted bribes in a bid to try and match fix the 1946 NFL Championship game.
Funnily enough, the Giants lost to the Chicago Bears 24-14
#2 - Rae Carruth - Lifetime ban
It was perhaps one of the most shocking stories in league history. Carruth was suspended by the league indefinitely after he was charged and convicted of several crimes.
On this day in 1999, Cherica Adams was murdered. North Carolina Panthers Rae Carruth hired a hitman to kill her because she was pregnant. Their son, Chancellor, has brain damage and cerebral palsy. Rae Carruth was released from prison in 2018 after serving 19 years. https://t.co/Bu4MVqYEmD
They included a conspiracy to take the life of his then-girlfriend. The most disturbing part of that is that the woman was pregnant with his child. Carruth would go on to serve 18 years in jail and was released in 2018.
There have been reports that he hired a hitman to kill her simply because she was pregnant. His son, Chancellor, has brain damage and cerebral palsy. Carruth never played in the league again.
#1 - Merle Hapes- Lifetime ban
The partner in crime to Frank Flichock. The pair were suspended for life after a bribery scandal broke out over the 1946 Championship game. It is thought that both Hapes and Flichock took bribes from Alvin Paris, a well-known gambler.
On this date in 1947, the big #NFL story in newspapers was that Alvin Paris, one of the guys who tried to fix the 1946 title game, had been sentenced to a year in prison. The #Giants' Frank Filchock and Merle Hapes, the players he tried to recruit, were booted out of the league. https://t.co/Nt8grSFQF3
The pair were reportedly offered money for the Bears to win by at least ten points in the game. Both played for the Giants and miraculously, the Bears did win by ten points, 24-14. Coincidence? The NFL didn't think so.