There's nothing surprising about a football player running afoul of the law anymore, so the only eyebrow raising thing about Shaun Ellis' arrest is that it took nearly a week to become public knowledge. The Jets, however, knew about the incident much earlier than the general public and, according to head coach Eric Mangini, doled out discipline before the news broke on Thursday.
He refused to say what discipline the team decided on, except that it wasn't a suspension nor a decision to remove the captain's C from Ellis' jersey. It was typical obfuscation from Mangini, who often refuses to utter more than a syllable in response to questions about player health.
It is troubling that Ellis and the Giants' Kareem McKenzie, after his DUI, skated by with the least possible punishment from their teams. It's doubtful that if either one weren't a key starter that they would have been so lucky. It's a team decision, obviously, but it's a decision that makes it hard to believe the Jets or the Giants care all that much about their players' conduct unless they are forced to by the sheer magnitude of their actions.
More troubling, though, is the veil of secrecy that both teams put up when their players get in trouble. The Giants have been rightly excoriated for trying to keep Plaxico Burress' shooting under wraps for as long as they could, and the Jets should get some of the same treatment for their handling of Ellis' arrest. So should the Giants for their handling of McKenzie's discipline, which also took place off stage. Mangini couldn't even give a straight answer when asked why anyone should believe there was a penalty if the team doesn't announce it.
"This is something that philosophically we believe in," Mangini said. "We've been very consistent with the type of people we bring into this organization. We've been very proactive with the type of people we bring into this organization. We've been proactive with educating our players and stressing the importance ... with trying to learn from mistakes. It's something we believe in."
It sounds like Ellis is on double-secret probation, which plays as just as much of a joke in real life as it does in the movies.
