Long ago, the National Football League surpassed Major League Baseball as America’s favorite pastime. In part that’s true because another favorite American pastime is gambling on America’s favorite pastime.

Unfortunately, if you are a player in the NFL, you aren’t allowed to gamble on the NFL. That’s what Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Calvin Ridley did. And he got caught. Now he is suspended for a full year because of what he did.

On Monday, the NFL made that announcement, which inspired an upheaval of another favorite American pastime.

Blame shifting.

Even though NFL rules strictly prohibit any player from gambling on NFL games, Ridley did it anyway.

But because in recent years the NFL finally broke down its very thin wall between avoiding gambling and fully embracing the activity, much of America has decided it’s the NFL’s fault for enforcing its rules, rather than Ridley’s for breaking them.

Because that’s the state of America in 2022. No one is individually responsible for anything. No one is ever at fault for anything themselves. It’s always somebody else. “The system.” “The construct.” “Society at large.”

Can’t anyone ever be guilty of doing something stupid on their own without finding someone else dumber to take the heat?

In sports, it’s always, “Blame the league. Blame the commissioner. Blame the team. Blame the owner. Blame the general manager. Blame the coach.”

No. Not this time. This is on the player. The player screwed up. Calvin Ridley screwed up. Stop trying to find another scapegoat.

Seems like a pretty simple concept to me. But that’s not stopping Twitter from taking the blameshift-shifter and shifting into overdrive.

Apparently, Ridley’s gambling on football is the league’s fault because it should’ve known better before partnering with gambling outlets like Caesars Sportsbook, FanDuel and DraftKings.

"I think the NFL should allow players to gamble on football...The NFL is in BED with gambling. It's all out there...You can't be against gambling and take the gambling house's money."

????@RobParkerFS1 pic.twitter.com/v2Lbel1x0r

— FOX Sports Radio (@FoxSportsRadio) March 8, 2022

This whole Calvin Ridley situation doesn’t sit well with me. Not excusing what he did at all but considering how the league has fully embraced sports gambling & these owners owning or partnering with these sportsbooks….man

— Damien Woody (@damienwoody) March 8, 2022

Don't blame the player, blame the game.

The NFL (and NBA) jumped in the bed with Vegas a few years ago starting with FD and DK. I doubt Calvin Ridley is the only one and what did you expect @NFL? There is a reason the NFL kept Vegas at arm's length for decades.

— Nostradamus (@livenostradamus) March 7, 2022

.@michaelsmith on Calvin Ridley's suspension:

Everybody's gambling! The league is in bed with these sportsbooks. I'd be shocked if a bunch of NFL players wasn't gambling on games using inside information. It's only a matter of time before other people get caught. pic.twitter.com/A8PhHfdryb

— Brother From Another on Peacock TV (@HolleyandSmith) March 8, 2022

Kind of hypocritical. Look at how the NFL is in bed with gambling. Now they suspend Calvin Ridley a year for gambling. ????

— Brian_301 (@Brian30114) March 8, 2022

If the league had an eight-figure sponsorship with a supplement manufacturer whose product was perfectly legal but was also banned for use by NFL players as a PED, we'd think that was odd, right?

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) March 7, 2022

NFL and sports betting used to try and keep as much distance between themselves as possible.

Now NFL's in bed with the entire industry, but still trying to act like it's not.

This is a weird new landscape that's far more complicated than it used to be imo.

— Sam Monson (@PFF_Sam) March 7, 2022

Nah. It really isn’t. It’s quite simple actually. If you are a player in the NFL, you can’t bet on the NFL.

There. I summed it up in one sentence. Not hard.

Others would have you excuse Ridley’s behavior because of other bungled suspensions by the league previously.

Major NFL suspensions:

Ray Rice: beating fiancé; 2 gamesAdrian Peterson: felony child abuse; 6 gamesGreg Hardy: beating gf; 10 games reduced to 4Ezekiel Elliot: hitting women; 6 games

Calvin Ridley: 17 games for using FanDuelJosh Gordon: 6 seasons for smoking weed

— Nick Looney (@NickLooney901) March 7, 2022

Calvin Ridley suspended a full season for gambling $1,500.

Kareem Hunt suspended half a season for spartan kicking a woman.

Make it make sense.

— Ryan Sura (@RyanSura18) March 7, 2022

You know, I take back what I said earlier. Blame shifting isn’t America’s third favorite pastime. Whataboutism is.

Indeed, the league decided to partner with gambling entities. So what? That’s for the fans. Not the players. One has nothing to do with the other. In fact, people bet on the games in hopes that the players aren’t involved in gambling because they don’t want to think in any way that the outcomes are fixed.

True. The NFL brought in an estimated $1.8 billion in sponsorship revenue through businesses such as DraftKings and FanDuel. And as FoxBusiness.com pointed out in 2020, the collective bargaining agreement “includes a provision designating any money earned from sports betting as subject to the revenue split, ensuring that players will receive a piece.”

So let’s not act like the players are being shut out. Not to mention if more people gamble, they watch games more often and watch a longer portion of those games. More ad revenue goes into the collective bargaining agreement. A bigger chunk of change goes into the players’ slice when the salary cap is announced every year. And so on.

The players are hardly exploited victims here. Especially not Ridley who tried to skirt the rules.

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One other thing needs to be said. Let’s stop pretending that if the NFL hadn’t formalized ties with the gambling world, this would’ve never happened. Sports gambling laws came tumbling down in 2018 and there has been a multi-billion-dollar surge ever since.

Are any of you trying to convince me that if it hadn’t been for NFL partnerships, Ridley never would’ve placed those bets? You expect me to believe that?

Ridley earned his suspension. He should have to sit out at least a year. But, as I said, it’s America in 2022. The media at large and Twitter specifically will continue to make Ridley out to be the aggrieved party in this situation, and I assume his suspension will eventually be reduced.

I’ll set the over-under at 8.5 games. Is Ridley is allowed to bet on his own appeal?

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