Philadelphia Eagles Allow Riley Cooper to Return With Zero Rehabilitation

By Michael Moraitis--Featured Columnist (@MichaelMoraitis)

The Philadelphia Eagles made us all believe that Riley Cooper was going to pay the price for his comments caught on video a few months back, but it appears the money out of his pocket is all he will pay.

According to Phil Sheridan of Philly.com, Cooper did pay the fine the Eagles handed down to him but it looks as though he never went to sensitivity training at all and the Eagles had no plans for the controversial wide receiver after dropping the N-bomb on video.


Instead, four days later, Cooper made it back to practice and head coach Chip Kelly didn't even announce it was coming as he had originally promised. I guess, as many have joked, that Cooper found a four-day cure for racism.

Also thrown into Cooper's alleged image-recovery tour was a meeting with the African-American guard he used the slur against and apparently dealing with his use of alcohol and the potential that it may lead to his saying things like the N-word. It's doubtful those things were addressed in such a short time.

In fact, per the same Philly.com article, Cooper likely went home to Florida to see his parents.

So, in all this talk about rehabilitating Cooper and keeping him away from the team while he does so, it was all bogus. The Eagles knew they were going to keep him all along and all Cooper needed to weather the storm was a few days off with mommy and daddy.

No suspension. No sensitivity training. Just a fine and nothing else. As if the Eagles couldn't have handled this any worse, they just keep topping themselves.

It's bad enough Cooper is still on the team, but the fact that the organization sold us this line of garbage makes it even worse. There's no question that the Eagles don't even care about what Cooper said, they just wanted him back to make things easier on the field and were willing to lie to shut us all up.

That has got to be troubling to the players on the Eagles roster who were rightfully offended by Cooper's use of the racial slur. A head coach must know these things to be true, but clearly Kelly didn't get the memo of just how divisive this situation could become.

I highly doubt players on the team have much trust for their new coach.

For a team whose future is already up in the air, this isn't likely to make it any easier. Kelly has failed to make the conversation about the team's play on the field and has done everything in his power to seemingly make it about off-the-field issues instead.

I told SportsGuyMike last week that I believed the sensitivity training was just the first step in Cooper's comeback. However, I had no idea that the Eagles receiver would skip that altogether and present zero justification for his return or any evidence that he has changed his ways.

This is a puzzling move to say the least for a sports town that used to be considered one of the worst years back as far as being accepting of other races is concerned. Now, Philly has a team that supplies almost zero punishment for egregious racism and this issue will only add another black eye to the ugly history of race and sports in Philadelphia.

While coach Kelly has made many questionable decisions during his time as a college football coach, the new Eagles front man is quickly making even worse decisions at this level. The coach and the organization should be ashamed of itself for this behavior and their allowance of a bigot to remain on the team with no repercussions at all.