Female Fans Struggle To Deal With Return Of Jonathon Cooper

The Denver Broncos will have linebacker Jonathon Cooper back on the field again on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, and on the football side that’s a very good thing. The defense may or may not need the performance boost that Walker will provide, but it restores continuity on a unit that’s been formidable. 

But the non-football part of Cooper’s availability is a very different matter indeed, especially for female fans. The actions that got Cooper arrested for felony assault and other charges related to a domestic violence incident are gruesome to read, and they should raise questions related to anyone who’s able to escape the consequences for those who take those kinds of actions. 

Female fans aren’t unanimous in their opinions about whether Cooper should be back before his trial is concluded, and Sam Jane of the Denver Post raised those questions with a small sample of 15 female fans. 

One was Devra Meer, who’s worked for 40 years in Denver’s criminal justice system, and part of her work involves supervising domestic violence offenders. She’s also a season-ticket holder since 1977, and she said she does “feel OK” with Cooper returning, even though it  goes against everything I did in my career.”

This wasn’t easy to admit, however. Jane added that she offered a two-minute response that came with an apology, then admitted she was “talking in circles” about her “complicated” opinion. Meer added that “there are two sides to this story.”

Several other women agreed with Meer, and one said it would have seemed like a long time for Cooper to be out without being proven guilty. Another said she thinks about it all the time, then gets “caught up” in rooting for Cooper as part of what’s going on on Sunday. 

Meer also asked the question of who her kids look up to now, given that kids look up to players like Cooper because they’re celebrities. She added that she believes her employer would simply have fired her if she’d been accused of strangling someone. 

The Broncos didn’t make anyone from Greg Penner’s ownership group available to ask questions, including Penner homself or his wife, Carrie Walton. The team did discuss multiple options that included releasing Cooper outright, and on the flip side the Post requested and received public records that indicate no history of similar incidents involving the linebacker during his time at Ohio State. 

The final opinion came from Brittney Hoots, a lifelong BRoncos fan who plays tackle for a woman’s full-contact professional team, who said, “It’s a slap in the face to female fans."