Its not that some people think people who do sports are not intelligent, but sometimes its people from the:
A)"Rough-House" Sports
A1)Does not include self-defense.
B)Football is part of 'A' which we assosciate with being thrown around and landing hard...
C)Which we associate with brain damage,
D)Which we associate with loss of intelligence, Slightly, but enough to make you think you're invincible(i.e, "I can do whatever I want because I'm not a wimp")
E)Which unfortunetly led to the behavior of these specific two players.
F)In reality outside of the news/media, most football players aren't going to go off and do something like what these two did.

Regardless, they should answer. Do you really think a football team should have two players with a small footnote of causing the lives of two young men to take a turn for the worse? People take advantage of that in more ways than they should. They shouldn't be allowed to play football, period, before their names are revealed and people put one and one together. The general public gravitates torwards negative stories rather than posititive.