ESPN’s Domonique Foxworth Is Sneaking Vegetables Into Your Sports TV

When I got there, and found myself at the bottom of the depth chart, that’s when it hit me: “Oh shit, I did all this stuff for nothing. No one’s gonna want to sign me to the big deal I’ve been working for that would justify all the sacrifices I’ve made.” What ended up happening was that Matt Ryan was good and we ended up being good. I worked my way up the depth chart, became a starter, and had probably the best season I had on the field. I got a big contract from Baltimore, which colors my experiences: I needed that team to want to win for me to get where I wanted to go.

There’s an implicit expectation that if a player is half-assing it, we’re all going to be like, “Come on, they pay you to do your job to the best of your ability.” We’d be furious if a player intentionally threw a game. I feel the same way about tanking—you’re just gonna fuck off my whole opportunity? I thought there was an understanding. When I go into a high-rise, I don’t find the architect and ask: “You promise this won’t collapse, right?” It’s understood that that’s their fucking job and I think the same should be true for teams.

There’s some dissonance between the NFL’s embrace of gambling and its recent gambling-related suspensions. Perhaps players should consider not gambling altogether, but do you think they should be suspended for betting on non-NFL games at team facilities or on the road, considering people can gamble at arenas and the fact that you can’t watch a pregame show without point spreads being mentioned?

It’s absurd. The way I see it, people in the NFL are very smart and tactical. I think their goal, like any business, is to make more money. I’m for that, too, so I recognize that the corporatization of sports has made more money for all of us. But sometimes we also have to acknowledge that there are drawbacks and we should try to correct them. I get frustrated because it feels like there’s only one entity that’s trying to correct for the drawbacks that impact the players, because [the league] doesn’t care about them.

To your question about the suspensions, I think gambling is a place to make more money. The league knows that, of the tens of thousands of players that will go through the league over the next 15 to 20 years, many of them are going to do dumb things. I wasn’t in the meetings, but it seems pretty obvious that their strategy is to overpunish, because no one person is that important to the business model. They’ll crush a player for doing something minor because their number one interest is to protect the shield, as they say. Protecting the shield against the players is not the same as protecting the players.

You see it now with the LIV stuff, it’s so brazen. [The leagues] will wrap themselves in patriotism and do whatever they can to “win” until the money’s on the other side, then they’re like, “Oh, OK. We believe in this now.” It’s tough, but we have to accept that they’re no different from any other business. It really sucks, though.

The NBA Players Association released a statement saying it didn’t agree with the length of Ja Morant’s suspension or the “unspecified conditions” he has to satisfy before he can return. Can you explain the reasoning behind a potential appeal, since it’s the available recourse?

I don’t want it to seem like I don’t understand what Adam Silver or the league are doing because if I were in that role, I’d be doing the same thing. No one person’s rights are more important than sustaining the whole league. But I think where I get upset is when they’re not an equally powerful body on the other side defending the players’ rights. So when something happens when someone’s obviously in the wrong, like Ja Morant is, then the league has the power—and public support—to take up more real estate as far as control is concerned. My biggest worry is that players’ rights get trampled at some point. I get the league’s position, but when you use language like “conduct detrimental to…,” that’s too broad for me because it could mean anything.

So for me, it comes down to the broadening of the power. The league’s goals are only in the best interests of the players if they don’t conflict with the league’s goals. I would be the same way if I were Adam Silver; that’s how the league is supposed to be. But when the union is not as powerful as the league, there are going to be situations where people are overpunished, and I just don’t like the players not having any recourse when that’s the case.

That’s why being a union head sucks: you’re not needed when shit is clear and obvious, you’re needed when you have to protect the player’s rights—even when the player has done something stupid. It’s really hard to be like, “OK, this guy’s done the same dumb shit again,” but that’s when you have to defend him. Because there’s going to come a time when you’re going to disagree with the league’s decision and want to exercise that power. The league is worried about its image and making money. That’s fine, and why there’s a union. The union should be as zealous in protecting the pla