The NFL to suspend Bengals DE Frostee Rucker for violation of Personal Conduct policy

As first reported by FOXSports.com, the NFL is to suspend Bengals defensive end Frosty Rucker for violating the league's personal conduct policy which stems from the settling of a domestic violence case in April.

The suggested suspension is proposed for one game, but Rucker and his agent are taking an appeal to the NFL Players Association. Their base of appeal is that the incident in question was in 2005, while Rucker was attending the University of Southern California.

"We're confident in the merits of our appeal of the suspension," agent J.R. Rickert said. "We're not aware of any case where the personal conduct policy has been applied to a person for an offense that occurred while they were in college." (ESPN.com)

The question is do Roger Goodell and the NFL have the right to suspend someone for actions that occurred while their player was actually not their player at all. The personal conduct policy was put in place to make the NFL players more or less "think twice" before they put themselves in situations that could make them, their team, or the league look bad. However, how can the league justify suspending a player for any amount of time if the player was not under these set of rules?

If Rucker loses the appeal and is suspended, he will be the third Bengals player to be suspended for the season opener. Rucker is also one of 10 Bengals players to be charged with criminal charges in a 14 month span. (ESPN.com)

Groups of players like these have been the basis for Commissioner Goodell's "Zero Tolerance", but there is no precedent set for suspending a player that was in violation while he was not a legal member of the NFL. Goodell's case may be made on the fact that even though the incident didn't occur while Rucker was a Bengal, the files were charged two months after he was drafted.

Mostly, the personal conduct policy has been great for the NFL in sending the message that if a player is going to act in a negative way, off the field; he is going to pay the price on it. However, in this case, I feel that Rucker is being treated unfairly. If the incident happens at a later date, maybe the impending conduct rule would be enough for Rucker to keep his cool. However, at the time Rucker was in college and still a student. That does not give him a pass on criminal charges, but maybe it is true that his bad decisions as a student should not follow him around in his career.