New York Giants president John Mara defended the team’s decision to re-sign Josh Brown despite the kicker’s alleged history of domestic violence and 2015 arrest following an incident with his then-wife.
Mara, who is also the team’s CEO and co-owner, said he was “comfortable” with the decision to re-sign Brown to a two-year, $4m deal in April.
“When we made the decision to re-sign Josh (for the first time) back in 2015, we were certainly aware of the arrest,” Mara said. “We were also aware of the allegations associated with that arrest, and the fact that the charges were dropped within a couple days after the arrest.
“Based on the facts and circumstances that we were aware of at that time, we were comfortable with our decision to re-sign him. Nothing has happened in the meantime to make us question that decision. This is an issue, domestic violence, that we take very seriously here. Everybody in this building – players, employees alike – go through a training program on issues like domestic violence and sexual abuse and DUI.”
Last week, Brown was suspended one game for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. Molly Brown, the kicker’s ex-wife, had told police that Brown had been physically violent with her more than 20 times over the past few years, but the NFL said it was unable to gather information on those instances from law enforcement offices during its investigation.
The 13-year NFL veteran was chosen by the Seattle Seahawks in the seventh round of the 2003 NFL draft and played with the St Louis Rams and Cincinnati Bengals before landing with the Giants in 2013.
