If NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is going to keep suspending his players for their wrongdoings, he needs to find a fair way to do it.

There is no problem with Goodell suspending players that deserve to be suspended, and most of the time they do deserve it. The problem is usually the amount of games the players are suspended for. Goodell seems to have no consistent pattern with how he hands out suspensions to players.

In 2008, then-New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a nightclub. He did no damage to anyone else besides himself, and Goodell suspended him for four games. That is a four-game suspension for shooting himself in the leg.

In 2011, former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor was suspended for five games for receiving impermissible benefits while in college. That is five games for something he did not do in the NFL.

Just last week, Denver Broncos kicker Matt Prater was suspended four games for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Prater, who has been in the league’s substance abuse program since getting a DUI in 2011, claims that the test was failed when he had a couple beers during a family vacation before training camp started. If that is indeed true, then basically he was suspended for drinking, something that every American over 21 years old can do.

Now, I understand that it is not as simple as I stated, but all three of those examples are players who made mistakes and did no damage to anyone besides themselves and their reputations. In Prater’s case he did no damage at all, just had a little bit of fun.
Another thing those players have in common are that they were all suspended for longer than Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, who was arrested this summer on third-degree aggravated assault after a video was released of him dragging his unconscious wife out of the elevator of a New Jersey casino.

Rice, who assaulted someone he “loves,” received only a two-game suspension from Goodell. It doesn’t make sense for him to receive a lesser suspension when the other players were suspended for more games and the crimes they committed were much less severe.

Goodell can keep suspending players because most of the time, they deserve it. Just make sure the punishment fits the crime.