You can think whatever you want. You seem to have no problem judging people without knowing anything about them or what they are going through.


Well you certainly dont seem to understand it, and you dont seem to understand that nobody, including Brandon himself, is asking for him to get a get out of jail free card for his past behavior.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I know plenty about Brandon Marshall.
I think Brandon Marshall is a bad person. You think that is wrong for me to think. Why can't I think that?

I'm not saying you should think Marshall is a bad person. If you think he's reformed then good for you. We'll see who turns out correct.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It's nearly impossible to know plenty about someone you have never met, especially a seemingly complicated guy like Brandon Marshall. You know that he's had several issues with the police, and that he's a football player

.
I dont think it is wrong for you to think that. I think it is wrong for you to pretty much continue to ignore the fact that his mental illness is probably the primary factor for his behavior, and to continue to assume that once treated, mental illnesses go away forever.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Tell me again how it's not an excuse, but I should think that his mental illness "is probably the primary factor for his behavior".

You are going back and forth here. Either it's an excuse or it isn't.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm sorry you dont know the difference between excuse and explanation.

You keep saying I'm excusing it, which I never have. I've never defended his criminal behavior. I have tried, I guess unsuccessfully, to explain to you that his borderline personality disorder was probably at the root of his bad behavior, especially since it was undiagnosed at the time.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Finish the thought.

"...which means he wasn't a bad guy, just had a disorder."

The reason you won't is because that's an excuse.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I did finish my thought. I'm not sure what you're getting at here. You're almost forcing me to pull an IMU and tell you to go look up the difference between excuse and explain. One is justifying a behavior, the other is not. I was not saying he was justified in his behavior. I said it was understandable how he behaved like he did, given he was chemically imbalanced, and wasn't even aware of it at the time. K, for the last time, Brandon Marshall should not be excused for his past mistakes. He was wrong. There is no way of justifying punching a woman in the face unless she is pretty much literally trying to kill you.

Now that he is aware of his problem, and is being treated, if his problems continue at the same pace as they did when he was undiagnosed, there will be some validity to your argument. But that doesn't appear to be the case, and if he has one incident in the next three years, I'm not going to all of a sudden say his whole "reformation" was bullshit. Symptoms dont disappear forever because they are being treated.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

FF,

You have empathy for Marshall that you haven't shown in the past in other instances.

Having said that, empathy is a good thing.

_________________

I think we all agree that punching a woman in the face in multiple different incidents makes you a bad guy. Is Brandon Marshall a bad guy?

It is impossible to answer anything but "Yes" to that question without making excuses for him.

That's my point. Just admit you are excusing his past behavior. I can't do it.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Again, we have different points of view about the world. You tend to look at everything in a very black and white, right and wrong fashion. That's fine. I don't. Good talk.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Brick, taking Brandon Marshall out of this for a second, do you think it's possible for someone with what you would consider a good morale compass to do really bad things if suffering from an undiagnosed, untreated mental disorder, or do you think doing those things makes that person bad regardless?

I definitely would go with the first option, but in Marshall's case I do question why it took so long to get treatment. I'm not entirely sure the exact nature of how BPD works, but I would imagine there must have been a few moments of clarity where he should have thought "what the hell am I doing?" and looked into getting treatment much sooner.

I think someone can reform themselves. There are people who are bad people at 20 that become better people as they get older. Regardless of whether someone has a mental disorder or is just a jerk it is possible. I do think that a mental disorder doesn't really change how good or bad the person was at the time. Brandon Marshall was a bad person, and had yet another incident in the past few months. No reason to think he's reformed.

In 5 years, like Jared Allen, we can have another discussion. Upon further review, he seems to have been fairly clean for 5 years. He still was a bad guy back then, but maybe he has changed.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think we sorta disagree then. I have more experience with bipolar disorder, so it could definitely work differently than BPD, but with bipolar I've seen first hand once an episode hits, a person can do/believe things they would never do if it wasn't for the being in the middle of an episode. So in that regard, the first time an episode manifests itself, I think a decent person might do some ridiculous things. That being said, when that happens it's obvious the person needs help/treatment, so that the episodes do not happen again, or at least keep them from being nearly as severe. So the fact that there were so many incidents prior to Marshall getting the right help treatment makes me think he might not have been the greatest guy to begin with. This is all predicated on BPD being somewhat similar to bipoloar disorder, though, in regards to it being episodic (if that's a word?). If someone with BPD is experiences the symptoms 100% of the time, I guess it would be more difficult to know to get help.

Reforming is probably a different topic altogether.

Good post.

I don't disagree. I think my biggest issue with Marshall is that he had another incident this summer. This is after he supposedly got help for his issues. I guess I need to see him be a good person for multiple years before I start to buy the fact that it was just a mental disorder and not him being a bad guy.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The guy states his opinions as facts and does so in a smug manner.

There is a clear anti-Bears bias in his analysis and it really comes through whenever they lose with his over the top statements.

I don't necessarily disagree with your take overall, but, I thought that in the incident before the trade this year, there actually was video evidence that he was not involved. The girl was looking for a payday. Maybe I heard that wrong - if so, I hope someone can clear it up.

It was dropped due to a lack of evidence. There was no evidence he wasn't involved, just not enough evidence to say he was involved.

Still, it's troubling that the "reformed" Marshall and his wife are getting in fights at nightclubs.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I thought there wasn't enough evidence to be able to say that.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

There is evidence a fight occurred. There wasn't enough evidence to charge him.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So he was in the area and there wasn't enough evidence to say he was involved? Got it.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yup. Just like Big Ben.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Oh, and there is evidence he and his wife were "involved". She was hit with a bottle, according to Marshall.

Oh, but after 13 other incidents, let's give Marshall the benefit of the doubt that he was just unlucky.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I just looked it up. There wasn't "not enough evidence". There was actually zero evidence. It was her word against his, and not one other person in the entire club saw him hit her. So I feel fine saying he probably didn't do it, which would mean there has been exactly zero incidents of him being a "bad guy" since getting diagnosed and treated.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yet you are unwilling to make the very simple prediction that he won't have another incident in the next two years. You aren't even willing to wager message board points on it.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No, of course not. He has a personality disorder that pretty much makes him act like a bad guy. He seems to have it under control right now, and there hasn't been any problems since then apparently. That doesnt mean the symptoms will never pop up again. Who knows? But if he had 13 incidents, or 15 or whateer, in 10 years, and he has 1 in the next 5, it's pretty obvious at that point that his undiagnosed illness was a major factor in it. That's why the Jared Allen comparison is so stupid, he's just a hillbilly who used to like to drink and drive and has now possibly matured with age. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Thank you for finally admitting you are using his mental as an excuse.
I didn't make the Jared Allen comparison, but Allen could just as easily use "mental illness" to explain it away.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

^^^

This is why I said you apparently dont take mental illness very seriously.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I take it seriously. I just don't think doing bad things because you have it saves you from being labeled a bad person. Now, if over a length of time you prove that you aren't doing bad things any more that label goes away, but it would with or without the mental diagnosis.

Just like anyone else, Brandon Marshall, who has done a lot of bad stuff, needs to prove that he is done doing bad stuff before he can shed the label. Getting his mental illness under control makes that more likely, but being diagnosed with a mental illness doesn't forgive him beating women.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Marshal and his wife are fine now.

Mental illness is hard ask Dan and Speegs they know.