Arizona Cardinals GM Steve Keim: We'd Take Hannibal Lechter if He Ran a 4.3

These days coaches, owners, and general managers in the NFL are worried a lot about perception. They don't want the perception to exist that they support anything illegal or immoral. They don't want to appear soft on crime especially domestic violence and drug related issues. That is why Ray Rice is out of the NFL and why some wonder if off-field issues are going to affect guys like Dorial Green-Beckham and Randy Gregory.

Arizona Cardinals GM Steve Keim decided recently that he was not going to bother trying to be holier than thou and told it like it is.



Rather than just say that the team is more interested in winning than winning a popularity contest he gave a great analogy:

GM Steve Keim on weighing off-field issues for prospects: "If Hannibal Lecter ran a 4.3, we'd probably diagnose it as an eating disorder."
— Darren Urban (@Cardschatter) April 22, 2015

Wow. That certainly paints a picture, but he has a point. It wasn't that long ago when criminal records and morality issues meant little when it came to personnel decisions as long as whatever the player did didn't land him in jail.

Is it because teams were run by SOB's back in the day? Absolutely not. They were run by people that were told to do whatever it took to win. Since social media and the 24/7 news cycle did not exist yet the world at large did not have the information that it does now and the means to comment on it.

Since the anonyity of the internet makes some people brave enough to type some truly vulgar and hate-filled things those comments can be awfully descriptive.

Now that they do teams have to be wary of signing the wrong guy because if he doesn't perform all the haters will start screaming about his baggage.

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