Thursday, July 09, 2020

Who needs the NFL?


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.


4 comments:

  1. I skipped the entire 2019 season and did not miss the NFL one lick. It is not going to be a problem to skip 2020 and beyond.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I look forward to not watching the NFL ever again. Last night I told my wife that I hope the NFL loses millions of dollars, that many franchises fold, & the whole thing disappear.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I live in Cincinnati, home of the worst NFL team. I stopped watching in 2017 the year AFTER the kneeing first started and the NFL decided to do nothing. Not one minute on TV or one sound bite on the radio. I turn off the sports during the news broadcast. I wasn't ever a basketball fan, but as of right now, if professional baseball or football never came back I couldn't care less.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dale? I grew up on the NFL. I liked the baseball Cardinals when they won but that was about all. Pro football all the way. Granted the football Cardinals never gave us much. And when Bill Bidwill started demanding a new stadium, I knew they were gone.

    The Rams do have their '99-2003 stretch; the Super Bowl win in 2000 remains the single most surreal experience of my entire life. And now they're gone, Rodge and the rest of his accomplices lying to us every step of the way.

    Where am I now? Well, let's put it this way. During the recent XFL 2 "season", we were the top-drawing team in that league. And that's the way it'll be from here on out. The Shield's not coming back here so we'll watch whoever plays in the dome, we'll buy their gear, etc., and if they go out of business, we'll do the same thing for the next team in.

    I wonder if the Shield realizes how much trouble they're in.

    ReplyDelete

Be reasonably civil. Ire alloyed with reason is fine. But slagging the host gets you the banhammer.

The Secret to Thriving during the Eastern Great Lent.

A couple secrets, actually. The first is Lebanese and Syrian cooking. At our new Melkite parish, the Divine Liturgy has been followed by Len...