NFL says arrests reduced more than 50 percent from three years ago

The NFL is far from perfect, but the league claims a huge drop in arrests from just three years ago.

The NFL released arrest numbers to the media at the owners meetings, according to multiple reporters there, and it shows a stark decrease (let’s be real, if arrests were up the PR folks there wouldn’t be handing out those sheets). The NFL claims that it had 70 arrests in 2013 and just 31 this year. The numbers have dropped each year from 70 in 2013 to 64, 39 and now 31.

While it was ironic that the NFL was handing out this information at about the same time the Arizona Cardinals were cutting receiver Michael Floyd for a DUI arrest, it’s fair to give credit where it’s due. While some like to rip the NFL for off-field issues, those issues are decreasing across the board. DUIs, drug arrests, weapons incidents and domestic violence arrests are all down since 2013, if the NFL’s numbers are accurate. While no business wants to see 31 arrests among its employees, and the NFL would probably agree that even one domestic violence incident is too many, the NFL probably doesn’t deserve all the scorn it gets sometimes for player misbehavior. If the 31 arrests this year are for different players and we use a basic measure of 53 players for 32 teams, that’s 31 of 1,696 players being arrested, about 1.8 percent.

The NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell has touted its personal conduct policy in the past. The NFL still mishandles some off-field situations, like the one with former New York Giants kicker Josh Brown and his domestic violence arrest earlier this year, but it has tried to clean the game up.

If the number of player arrests are an indication, the NFL’s efforts are working.

More NFL news from Yahoo

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Follow @YahooSchwab