Over the past week, I’ve watched a lot of ESPN. Honestly, I may have gone a bit overboard, but how can you blame me?

With the Final Four about to be played and baseball season just getting underway, it’s safe to say I got my fair share of time in front of the tube to get my daily dose of analysis on the upcoming season and weekend of college athletics.

But with my excitement came the inevitable disappointment, as the NFL continues to dominate headlines for the wrong reasons.

Now, I’m not one to complain about the alleged East Coast bias ESPN claims not to have, but I will grumble when I see NFL news in March.

I mean, really, when they could be covering the most exciting month of sports, they choose to produce an A&E-style biography of former USC quarterback Mark Sanchez? I know he’s good, but come on.

But that’s not even what gets to me the most. When watching SportsCenter for the fifth time last Wednesday, I was briefed on Dont? Stallworth facing DUI manslaughter charges after killing a pedestrian on March 14.

Let me stress the word “brief” in that sentence.

After being told in about four minutes that Stallworth walked out of jail on a $200,000 bail, I had to do additional reading online, only to find out that the Browns wide receiver could face up to 15 years in prison.

But wait, my bad. Mark Sanchez threw 100 passes today, so let’s make sure we make that our top priority.

Not only is it irrelevant in time concerns, but ESPN’s willingness to essentially overlook an NFL player possibly facing up to 15 years in prison, or more importantly the fact that he killed a man while driving drunk, shows just how much the NFL gets free passes in the sports media.

After discussing this with a close friend, he made the claim that if something similar to Stallworth’s situation happened in the NBA, there would be the unavoidable, “The NBA is a thug’s league,” notion, which he maintains would be borderline racist — that might be a bit far-fetched.

But what isn’t implausible is to relate similar incidents to that one. Now I don’t know what exactly would happen if Stallworth were an NBA superstar, but what I do know is the NBA is doing everything it can to boost its image, whether it be fining players for illicit comments or enforcing the relatively-new dress code.

Face it, whether you like the NFL or not (I happen to love pro football), the fact remains that aside from the Michael Vick debacle, which may have only been as publicized as it was because of the brutality of the crime, players in the NFL can get away with much more than can players in other sports.

Take Alex Rodriguez, for example. Him using steroids topped headlines for weeks. While his face might no longer be the top story of most publications, his exclusive interview with ESPN might have been the most viewed and read story of the year.

That, of course, was for the right reasons. A-Rod lied to everybody, then came out and admitted to using steroids. Simply, he went from being loved and respected to having the same status as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire.

But hold on. Didn’t San Diego Chargers Linebacker Shawn Merriman test positive for steroids also? Oh that’s right, he did, and he was suspended for four games in 2006. And now? Well, Merriman is getting ready to be the staple of the Chargers’ defense, without any said scrutiny from media or fans.

While some might view that example as a poor comparison, it absolutely shows the discrepancy between the media covering the NFL as opposed to other sports. Frankly, it’s disappointing.

So while Stallworth is going over his options with his lawyers, he might be thankful his privacy is being somewhat protected. But at the same time, the sports media needs to come together and decide whether or not it will look at the NFL the same way it does other sports, regardless of its popularity.

Hopefully, the media will choose to cover the most important topics in the coming weeks. I hope baseball and the NCAA Championship top that list. But we’ll see what Mark Sanchez has to say about that.

Jonah is a sophomore majoring in journalism and Hebrew and Semitic studies. Think the NFL bias has gotten out of hand? Send your thoughts to [email protected].