Brennan: Players need more than app for DUIs,

The NFL has a serious drunk- driving problem. League officials know it. The players know it.

The league correctly says it’s time to suspend players for a first- time offense. As for the players union? It would rather try an app for that. The NFL Players Association held a conference call Wednesday to unveil a partnership with Uber, which provides its users with private drivers through an app on smartphones. Unfortunately, that service is currently available in only 17 of the 31 NFL cities.

“The goal for us is to change behavior,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said on the call.

That won’t happen with a smartphone app that’s not available to players from 14 NFL teams. It will be done only with suspensions: serious, meaty, multiple- game bans for any player charged with DUI.

Last year, drunk NFL players had an even easier- to- use tool at their disposal: a call- in number to get a chauffeur to come and pick them up at the bar, club, restaurant, home or anywhere else they were drinking. They didn’t have to download an app, or open it. They simply had to call a phone number that could easily have been programmed into their phone.

That ride- home service was available to Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Josh Brent last December, but he didn’t use it. Instead, he chose to drive home with teammate Jerry Brown. Shortly thereafter, Brent flipped the car and crashed, killing Brown. Brent has been charged with DUI manslaughter and retired in July.

The NFLPA can throw all the smartphone technology it wants at the issue of drunk driving, but it will never be enough. Players always will want to show off their cars, even more so when they aren’t thinking clearly. They’ll say they are OK to drive home no matter how drunk they are. And they will always be concerned that teams can track their use of the app, potentially getting them into trouble in whole new ways.

That’s why suspensions are the only answer for the worst single criminal problem in the NFL, with DUIs accounting for 27% of arrests since Commissioner Roger Goodell took over in 2006, according to data compiled by USA TODAY Sports. If a player is arrested on DWI charges, he should receive a significant suspen-

“Suspension from play is the only thing that’s going to be an effective deterrent.”

Adolpho Birch, NFL senior vice president

sion. Not a couple of games. That’s not enough.

“I don’t think there is anything more you can do until you start suspending guys for seasons instead of two or three games,” veteran Denver Broncos cornerback Quentin Jammer told USA TODAY Sports.

Players being suspended for full seasons? I can hear the NFLPA wailing now. But a year- long suspension for a first DUI would, over time, save lives. Jail time through our legal system should be scary enough to these young men, but it’s not. Nor is the two- game fine that exists now. Take away their football, though, and that would get everyone’s attention, especially those players who are standing in a parking lot at 2 a. m., holding their car keys in one hand and their cellphone in the other.

The NFLPA would never go for a full year, so the league should negotiate what it can get. Eight games would be substantial. It could even drop to four if it must, although that would be a missed opportunity for both the league and its players.

“Suspension from play is the only thing that’s going to be an effective deterrent from making that bad decision in the first place,” NFL senior vice president Adolpho Birch said of DUIs. “A fine, while it has an impact on the player, does not have nearly the impact as a suspension of play. By increasing the risk associated with driving under the influence from a team perspective, it will have an impact on the front end. That’s what we’re trying to get to.”

Some in the NFL are already there. When two Denver Broncos executives were arrested on DUI charges in June and July, they were suspended by the team, one for a month, the other indefinitely.

If that kind of punishment works for the front office, it’s time to try it on the playing field.

BRANDON WADE, AP Former Cowboy Josh Brent, right, with attorney George Milner, is charged with DUI manslaughter in the December death of former teammate Jerry Brown.