Everyone went nuts when they saw Josh Brent on the Cowboys sideline in the game against the Steelers. CBS Sports columnist Gregg Doyel wasn’t one of them. Yesterday he wrote:
Look, few people in this world — Jerry Brown’s parents, but maybe nobody else — lost as much as Josh Brent lost on Dec. 8. He lost his best friend. He killed his best friend. He lost his dream career. He lost his freedom, most likely, after the courts are through with him. He lost his reputation. He lost damn near everything that night, and now we’re going to complain because he’s standing on the sideline a week later with his friends and teammates?
He has a point. The reason people got upset, I think, is because they want to see someone who has done bad things suffer. They certainly don’t want to see him standing on a field at an NFL game, which sounds like a lot of fun. But for Josh Brent, standing on that sideline couldn’t be much fun. Every player he saw surely reminded him of the best friend he killed. And every play he saw surely reminded him of the career he has lost. If the players and Brown’s family want him there, then there’s nothing wrong with Josh Brent watching a football game. Just keep the cameras off him till he’s sentenced, and we can all go about our business.
