On Tuesday morning, I was driving to work listening to “Mike & Mike” on ESPN radio, as I do most morning commutes. For 15 minutes, Greeny and Golic allowed Jim Turner, the former offensive line coach for the Miami Dolphins, to share details and his point of view on what exactly happened last year between Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin that led to a social outcry over locker room ethics and behavior.

For the first few minutes, all I could think was:

1. Why are they rehashing all this? That was last year!
2. Why are they giving this man so much air time to talk about something that happened last year and has been over for so long?

After all, there was much more to talk about – sports for one. But if the show was heading down that path (again) of discussing the larger issues that are taking over sports, then why not at least cover something from 2014?

And then it hit me.

We never really figured out what happened.

I didn’t even know this guy’s name. We moved through that story, that news cycle, so fast and with such condemnation that we made grandiose assumptions about what happened, but never really found out the truth, then came to a conclusion well in advance and moved on to the next thing.

If it seems like the NFL is in a dark place right now, it is because it does seem that way. But seeming to be is not the same as it actually happening. To be fair, the NFL, NBA and the world in general are not any darker or different than it was 25 or 30 years ago.

We just find out about everything now – in near real time – and often react within the same beat.

We have a mob mentality on Social Media. We have shifted into an era of guilty until proven innocent. This is no longer about defending one person, their actions or even trying to determine what actually happened.

This is about the part that precedes that part.

While there is clearly a lack of leadership in the NFL – and perhaps more importantly, it’s player’s union – the NFL and other professional sports leagues should not be held to a standard that we do not hold ourselves or the justice system to.

In other words, while the NFL can and should do better, it is not their responsibility to go above and beyond the punishment, or lack thereof, handed down by the law.

We’ve been dipping our toes in some very troubling waters lately. Social media has pushed the public outcry to a place that is placing a great deal of pressure on different groups and people to act correctly – and with extreme speed. This creates two important problems that we seem to be ignoring with consequential long term damage.

Problem No. 1: In an attempt to get things right, speed matters. But not rapid speed. Rushing leads to mistakes, to not hitting all the angles just right. Think of pretty much every time you have rushed to get something done. Now how did that work out? Fail a test? Miss a deadline? Burn the casserole? Care for any do-overs? Ever think back on that situation a month, six months or a year later? While our decision making process should not take a long time, it also shouldn’t play out in 36 hours.

Problem No. 2: We cannot agree on what is “right” – and we probably never will. This is a simple fact of humanity. You will not find everyone in complete agreement on any issue, which is a good thing.

Look, we do not need to like the same things. The world would be a pretty boring place if we did. But we also do not have to agree on everything, or be right all the time. Better still, until we have all the information we need to process something, we don’t even need to be first or fast. We should want to do what is right, not just be right.

Debate, whether reasonable or not, at the very least helps with Problem No. 1 because it forces a slowdown. Making a decision alone, without consult, and it tends to cause collateral problems.

There is no doubt a wide array of opinions on the Adrian Peterson situation. From every corner, we hear from people with various and diverse backgrounds who have all been disciplined in a numerous ways. Some might have been whipped and hated it. Some might have hated it, but understood it and employ it with their kids. Others were never whipped and have run amok in life, while still even more were never spanked and have turned out to be fine, upstanding citizens.

But we want to be right, we want everyone to agree that we are right and we want to move on to the next thing we can find to stand up on a soapbox and shout about, be right about and move on from.

It does not – or should not matter – what our opinions are in regard to these situations, frankly. We can and should feel free to share them, so long as it does not sway the process due to them. And there is a difference between defending someone and defending the rights of anyone.

For example, Donald Sterling is clearly a sick, twisted and evil man. The NBA used his incredibly disgusting track record and a surging public outcry to take his business and sell it to someone else. And while the NBA – and the world in general – are better for it, while we all applaud the fact he’s out and gone, it doesn’t make us any less culpable for beating up the bully and taking what didn’t belong to us.

And now, it’s over. It feels like a long time ago.

It was July.

We’ll move on – and quickly – from Adrian Peterson, too. Just like we did with Ray Rice and Roger Goodell a whole week ago.

It is strange to think how collectively, through social media, we make up one of the most influential groups in the modern world. It’s an instant poll in many ways – like performing in front of a live audience, except with each line, you stop, gather the reaction and then move on to the next scene.

Truth be told, no one knows what to do right now –almost entirely because of what we will say. We have frozen the market on public relations, almost across the board.

Beer companies are threatening to pull sponsorship money because the NFL’s problems are not matching their “value” system (slightly ironic, right?). Hotels are gasping when their sponsorship banner hangs behind a team official as he makes an announcement because of the content and topic of said announcement.

Major sports companies and sponsors are suspending or pulling their deals with athletes and teams and leagues because they are afraid of us. They are afraid we’ll boycott, that we won’t buy their goods or services. Further, these actions are met with approval from celebrities and dignitaries outside the world of sports, simply because it feels like something that needs to be stated: “[Insert whatever situation, e.g. Child Abuse/Domestic Abuse] is wrong and I’m glad to see them doing something about it.”

Except nobody really did anything. “They” stopped selling jerseys or action figures or posters. They suspended someone with pay. They booted someone from the league. But nothing of real value has actually been done to prevent future child or domestic abuse.

This is not just limited to sports. Last week, Apple haphazardly forced all iTunes accounts to download the new album from U2 – which was met with swift and shameful scorn by social media. In about three days’ time, Apple released a program that would remove the album from user accounts. Good, right? Except how many even knew Apple possessed the power to put that on our devices to begin with? And if they can do it with Bono’s overly produced music, what could they do it with in the future?

We have yet to understand the breadth and depth of the power we now hold in our hands – both the technology and the medium.

Look at what we’ve done in just the past 10 days: Roger Goodell, the most powerful sports commissioner in history – has been shamed into hiding for the past week. Perhaps he should be fired – for a variety of reasons that include incredibly poor decision making – but a gone Goodell does not solve the problem. It only satisfies the social media mob.

The NFL did not just get a domestic abuse problem – as detailed here, it’s had one for years. Whether or not Goodell goes away or Ray Rice ever is allowed to return does little to address the issue. Further, we don’t seem to actually care about Janay Rice, just about using her as visual evidence for our cries of NFL violence and players out of control.

Donald Sterling did not just become a bigot overnight after a weird conversation with a woman not his wife; it had been documented for years as the lawsuits piled up. Being ousted as owner of the Clippers changes none of the living situations and irreparable damage Sterling did to others as their landlord.

The same as the NFL locker room has probably always been a strange place to you and me, the details of this foreign area escaped last fall in a situation that has been reported on largely by one side. But we don’t care about Richie Incognito or Jonathan Martin anymore.

We’ve long since moved on.

Last week, we had the whole NFL, the Baltimore Ravens and Ray Rice to be the judge, jury and pass verdict on. This week, we’ve got Adrian Peterson and the Minnesota Vikings. Next week, or the week after, it will be something else.

We’re using social media to collectively engage in our own little drama filled soap opera. And now, as our social media world turns, so does the actual world. We engage and trade barbs and opinions with people we know and we don’t know, saying things we’d never say out loud and/or in person, making the world at large believe we’re actually invested in the issue of the day – making our collective voices the loudest voting poll in human history.

You have to wonder if our cyber selves are creating a kind of future where social media swiftly – and with great feigned outrage – decides even more. What about the policies and the politics that govern us? Will we continue to not wait for all the information and provide a presumption of guilt until proven innocence as standard operating procedures?

Just remember that it is not so much about who you are, but what you will become.

I feel compelled to ask, what are we becoming?

And, are we really OK with it?