RUSH: A second woman, Sports Illustrated, they found a second woman alleging sexual misconduct by Antonio Brown. The woman alleging the misbehavior and rape is meeting today with the NFL, at which point they will determine her credibility and decide what to do going forward. Another woman coming forward is going to either cloud or clarify the issue. And a lot of people were telling me over the weekend, I played golf Saturday. “Rush, I can’t believe the Patriots did not suspend the guy.”

I said, “You guys, they can’t yet. They can’t just on the allegation. It’s a different set of circumstances now. Gambling is legal in certain states, and the number of states legalizing gambling is on the rise. And, if the NFL suspends any player — Antonio Brown or anybody — whenever somebody alleges something and they haven’t investigated it, that means that professional gamblers could hire women to make allegations against star players, get them thrown out for a game or a couple of weeks or whatever.

The league has to be really, really careful about this. It’s not just the gambling interest, but that’s a clear factor now. I think that’s the major unspoken reason why the league didn’t take any action yet on Antonio. Plenty of time to find out if there’s any truth to the allegation, but you’ve got to do that first. ‘Cause if you don’t — you know, this #MeToo movement, it’s politicizing everything. And, as you know, that corrupts everything that it touches.

Sports is on the way to suffering its own instances of political corruption. It got started with the kneeling, the protesting the flag, entering all this stuff about the cops into the game, the NFL paid a price for it. The #MeToo movement, it’s alive and well out there, and there are a lot of women that think they’ve been mistreated, want to get even, want to cause trouble. So the league has to be very, very careful. They can’t just suspend after an allegation has been made. Because anybody can make one, evidence or no evidence.

And, if gamblers get the idea that they can cause star players to be taken off the field, then they would do it. I think that probably is one of the primary reasons, notwithstanding the usual American judicial system innocent until proven guilty. I think the gambling aspect here is a crucial aspect. A lot of people don’t want to talk about it, don’t want to reference it, don’t want people to even think that such things could happen, but they can and would if the NFL acted too quickly.