This has potentially been the worst week in the history of the NFL.

When you hear a statement like this, the first assumption would be that it concerns a lack of quality play on the field, but it concerns something far more disturbing.

Domestic violence has once again joined the national discussion due to the actions of a few select NFL players. At the forefront of there is Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice, who punched his wife in an elevator causing a turn of events that has fans screaming that the NFL tried to cover up the situation. A video of him attacking his wife was released by TMZ, which caused a national uproar considering Rice had already been suspended for two games. The Ravens have terminated Rice’s contract and he has been suspended indefinitely.

There are also two other NFL players who are feeling national pressure due to their involvement in domestic violence cases; Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers and Ray Macdonald of the San Francisco 49ers. While these cases may not have been caught on camera as Rice’s was, they still raise a serious question. Is there a connection between the violence on the field and violence in the home?

There’s a few ways to answer this question. One way is that there is no connection and they have more to do with the person rather than the sport. But considering that NFL players are paid to be as aggressive as possible six days a week, it would be impossible to keep all that aggression on the field at certain points.

That’s not to say that all NFL players abuse their significant others, there’s just a few bad apples in this bunch. According to CNN, fourteen NFL players have been arrested for domestic violence in the past two years.

This number is changing the national view of football players as out of control. While this couldn’t be further from the truth, the fact is, this viewpoint must have something to do with the violent play they have taken part for most of their lives.

While we may never get a definitive answer about why domestic violence has become so prevalent in sports, the violence in the sport of football may be one of the main factors among others. Hopefully, this trend will change going forward and stories like these will not dominate an entire week’s worth of news. But for now, we are forced to take a look at domestic violence and the reason it continues to occur.