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Another NFL punk is given a spotlight

Bill coach Rex Ryan makes IK Enemkpali a team captain for the game the ex-Jet faces is former team.

IT IS INESCAPABLE, this topic of violence and the NFL.

It's as if the league relishes it.

On the heels of Greg Hardy's latest battery-related upheaval, Rex Ryan and the Bills have called for a spotlight.

To date, Ryan's most remarkable accomplishments since the Jets ran him out of MetLife Stadium center on his hiring practices.

First, Ryan signed outcast hazer Richie Incognito in February.

Then, Ryan traded for diva running back LeSean McCoy.

Finally, Ryan signed fringe linebacker IK Enemkpali off waivers a day after the Jets cut him for breaking the jaw of franchise quarterback Geno Smith in a locker room fight . . . over a $600 debt Enemkpali believed Smith owed him.

Thursday, Enemkpali will be one of the captains when the Bills visit the Jets for the first time under Ryan.

In case the message is unclear, let's clarify:

Break a guy's jaw? Love it! We'll make you captain the first time we see him!

By allowing this to happen, the NFL implicitly endorses it.

This move is typical of Ryan, and not even the first such move this season.

He made Incognito a captain against the Dolphins last week - a Dolphins team left reeling after Incognito's bullying scandal in 2013. An NFL investigation in 2014 determined that Incognito and two other linemen adhered to a pattern of team-endorsed homophobic and racist bullying and harassment of two teammates. The Dolphins kept Incognito out of the last eight games of 2013, purged their front office and cut him in 2014, when no team picked him up.

Until Ryan.

While Incognito's tactics might have briefly driven teammate Jonathan Martin from the game, Martin at least left with his face intact.

Certainly, the Eagles cannot cast stones at redemption projects.

They resurrected the career of Michael Vick after he emerged from federal prison with his gory history of animal cruelty.

Eagles coach Chip Kelly retained and rewarded receiver Riley Cooper after the release of Cooper's videotaped indiscretion: using a racial epithet at a country music concert.

Since then, both Vick and Cooper have been game-day captains - a designation without any real weight, to be honest.

"I've been, a couple of times," Cooper said.

Did it mean a lot to you?

"Ah, I don't know," Cooper said, rolling his eyes. "I don't know how Chip chooses his captains."

In light of that review, Chip pulls names out of a hat. At least Kelly and his predecessor, Andy Reid, didn't target another team when they made Vick and Cooper captains.

Football captaincy doesn't usually mean much - unless you have the poor taste to use it as a weapon.

This is exactly the sort of attention the NFL says it doesn't like, but you have to wonder. It seems as if the NFL likes any sort of attention, regardless of the implied endorsements.

By trotting out Enemkpali for the pregame coin flip, Ryan is endorsing violence as a means to supply justice.

He might say he's just playing mind games with the Jets, but surely they are inured to that after six years of shenanigans.

Please, don't try to argue Enemkpali has earned the right to captaincy. He is a part-time player in his second NFL season who is used primarily on special teams - one who missed the first four games while under suspension for socking Smith.

That very well might have derailed the Jets' season. Smith missed two games, but he lost his starting spot.

That's because former backup Ryan Fitzpatrick and new coach Todd Bowles have guided the team to a 5-3 record. Given Smith's spotty record in his first two seasons, Enemkpali might have done the team an accidental favor.

And now, he is used as a pawn, so Ryan can spit in the eye of the franchise that fired him. It is another black eye for a league reeling from its reputation for violence.

Combined, Hardy, Ravens batterer Ray Rice and Vikings child whipper Adrian Peterson played two games (Hardy and Peterson) in 2014 - but only after public outcry shamed their teams into benching them and eating their salaries.

Peterson, who used a switch to whip his 4-year-old son in the summer of 2014, avoided jail for child abuse by pleading guilty to a lesser charge. The NFL tried to suspend him for most of the season, which it effectively did - he played only in the season opener - but Peterson had the suspension overturned in court after the season. He restructured his contract with the Vikings and he leads the league in rushing.

Hardy was suspended for the first four games of this season after a domestic violence incident involving his a former girlfriend, Nicole Holder, in the spring of 2014, when he was a Panther. He signed with the Cowboys, served his suspension and has four sacks in four games, including one Sunday against the Eagles . . . after the website Deadspin released shocking pictures of Holder's injuries.

Rice, a running back past his prime, has been blackballed by the league after video surfaced on TMZ Sports of Rice knocking out his then-fiancee in an Atlantic City hotel elevator in February 2014.

Enemkpali might never have a prime. A sixth-round pick of Ryan and the Jets in 2014, he played in only six games as a rookie and three this season. That's not a criticism; it's just who he is in the NFL so far.

He also is a guy who made a mistake in the heat of the moment. The story goes that Enamkpali believed Smith owed him reimbursement money because Smith failed to show up at an appearance. Smith repeatedly and disrespectfully refused to pay, and, finally, Enemkpali had enough.

Bam.

Bowles described it as a sucker punch, which it might or might not have been; certainly, it was unexpected.

Everybody expected this punch in the mouth from Ryan.

That doesn't make it right.

On Twitter: @inkstainedretch