Who needs the NFL?

After watching Drew Brees verbally blasted by players across the League (and from other sports) for polite disagreement with kneeling and DeSean Jackson greeted with crickets by the same players for posting quotes attributed to Hitler...goodbye to the entire thing.

The kneeling issue was overblown by all sides, and social activism is every American’s right to pursue (within the law, of course). Criticism can be met with criticism, and that’s also part of the great value within free speech. The criticism isn’t the problem, or at least it’s not the real problem — it’s the reeking condescension and hypocrisy of these elite athletes and their leagues.

On one hand, they plan to roll out a season of lectures for its fans on racism and hate, and cast those who might have different points of view as quasi-racists or enemies. On the other hand, when another player engages in outright declarations of anti-Semitism — especially in regurgitating idiotic hoaxes and cheering on pseudo-Hitler — these same players are not only silent, they occasionally cheer it on. And the league itself, which has spent the last several years negotiating on just how much money they want to pour into the players’ social-justice causes, doesn’t even issue a peep about it. And let’s not forget about the NBA’s cowardly surrender to China on speaking truth to power, too.

“Anybody else feeling a loss of interest in the NFL as an institution? I know I am,” Smith concludes. So am I. When the league and its players want to address all forms of hate and intolerance, they can call me. As long as they’re giving a pass or actively cheering anti-Semitism, though, I have better uses of my time and money. See you in 2021 … maybe.

The "what if someone else said it" card can be overplayed, but let's be honest. If a white player on the Eagles had posted a quote associated with Hitler and offered praise for David Duke, his ass would be unemployed and unemployable.

And it's interesting that all of the white sports columnists who "bravely" joined the Brees pile-on are utterly mute towards Jackson's foray into Hitler-Meets-The-Black-Israelites.

Lest we forget, two people devoted to the Black Israelite thesis murdered Jews last year, making Jackson's citation of such sources much less than benign "oopsie" material.

And with the NFL's announcement of the two national anthems this year...Jason Whitlock points out the obvious problems with that.

If the NFL starts out its season with everyone standing for "Lift Every Voice" and sing the black national anthem, and then virtually everyone on the field taking a knee when the Star Spangled Banner plays, I think it's going to be -- if you remember the show "Happy Days," the jump the shark moment when it's like, okay, happy days is over. The NFL will run off a nice fat chunk of its audience, and will never be seen the same again, because of the failure of leadership throughout the NFL.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of people who will be so starved for team sports that they will muscle their way past their misgivings on all of that. But there will be quite a few who won't. And the odds of them coming back will be small.

Hey, I live in Metro Detroit. Our pro team is the butt of jokes...when it rises to mention at all. It has managed all of one playoff win in my 51 years on this planet.

I will have nothing to miss.