Football — one of America’s favorite sports — suffered a terrible tragedy this weekend, yet who are people focusing on? You’d be wrong if you thought people were outraged about this country’s domestic violence culture or current gun laws. 

Their focus is Bob Costas.

This past Saturday, Kansas City Chief Linebacker Jovan Belcher murdered his 22-year-old girlfriend Kasandra Perkins. He then traveled to the Chiefs training facility, where he committed suicide in front of the team’s head coach and general manager.

In wake of these terrible events, the Chiefs still decided to play their upcoming game.   

During the halftime discussion on “Sunday Night Football,” NBC sports commentator Bob Costas used his platform to express his discontent with American gun culture and criticized America’s obsession with football.

He quoted former Kansas City columnist and writer for Foxsports.com: “Football is our God. Its exaggerated value in our society has never been more evident than Saturday morning in my adopted hometown. There’s just no way this game should be played today.”

And he was right. In true respect of the family and football fans everywhere, the Chiefs should have canceled the game. And if at least not for Belcher or Perkins, their 3-month-old daughter should have been taken into account.

The NFL should have stepped in immediately and canceled this game to show that they truly value their players and not the money their players generate.

This should have been a time where team and league officials stepped in to see how they could help the families and spread awareness about current gun laws and domestic violence. 

But they continued with business as usual. And since everyone wanted to mention briefly, but really ignore the incident, Bob Costas took on the responsibility.

And while those statements were enough to resonate with the millions of viewers, Costas did not stop here. He continued to quote Whitlock who wrote: “Our current gun culture ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy. … Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.”

His point? If Belcher didn’t have a gun, his girlfriend might still be alive. 

Many were outraged by this and called for Bob Costas’ dismissal, saying that he was completely out of line. On Tuesday he said, “My mistake is I left it open for too much miscommunication.”

But the truth of the matter is that this is really not about Bob Costas or whether he should have used his platform to express his thoughts. The people criticizing him need to understand the root of the issue.

The truth is that this situation does warrant conversation about gun laws and domestic violence.

All too many times a bad situation turns worse because a gun is involved.

This is not only seen in domestic violence issues, but with all types of crimes, especially in cities such as Chicago, where homicide rates have increased this year.

Furthermore, there are many more disturbing dynamics with the Belcher tragedy. The head coach and general manager decided to play the game after personally watching one of their players commit suicide seems to be a problem in itself.

It only makes me wonder what’s going on in their minds.

There is also a young child involved who will never have the opportunity to know her parents. The NFL has agreed to support the daughter of Belcher and Perkins through college, but all the money the league generates will not bring her parents back.

The first step in overcoming any problem is acceptance and it’s time to accept that guns are the problem.

Ta’les is a junior in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].