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Fredo, You Broke My Heart. A Letter to Goodell
Mark Murphy, President and CEO, Green Bay Packers
Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner
I am writing to you as a lifelong fan of the Green Bay Packers. I have been a Packer fan since the mid-1960s despite having been born and raised in Chicago. While in grammar school, our library had Sports Illustrated, and reading the articles about the Packers I fell in love.Lombardi, Nitschke, Starr, Adderley, Hornung, and Kramer became my heroes. I remember exactly what I was doing while listening to the radio broadcast of the Ice Bowl. From the Glory
Lombardi, Nitschke, Starr, Adderley, Hornung, and Kramer became my heroes. I remember exactly what I was doing while listening to the radio broadcast of the Ice Bowl. From the Glory Days, to the travails in the ’70s and ’80s, I followed Brockington, Hadl, Dickey, Lofton, etc., listening to the games on WTMJ radio. In the ’90s with their rebirth, I became an early subscriber to NFL Sunday Ticket, so I could watch them while living in California. I hosted a Super Bowl Party for SB XXXI when the Lombardi Trophy returned to Title Town.
From 1997 to 2007 I moved to the Fox Valley. While there I attended many Packer games, and my children became fans as well. We were in the stands for Freeman’s Miracle Catch against the Vikings. We witnessed the “We Want the Ball” pick-six against the Seahawks, just to mention a few memorable games. From 1997 to 2007, when we moved to North Carolina, I and my son attended about three games a year.
After the move to North Carolina, we tried to make a game every other year, either locally, or back at Lambeau. Four of us attended the playoff game in Atlanta in 2010 to see the Packers on their advance to their Super Bowl championship in SB XLV. Christmas gifts for myself and my kids the next year were shares of Packers stock. We were owners. More games, as we traveled to Charlotte and Wisconsin the next few years. We planned to attend the Charlotte game this year.
Thousands spent on tickets, hotels, flights and meals. Money spent on DirectTV since 1996 so that I could watch the NFL Sunday Ticket. NFL Game Pass to watch the games when I worked in Saudi Arabia, and watch the replays since I returned to the US. Sirius Radio subscriptions so I could listen to the games while traveling.
I was twice featured as a fan, once in the Appleton newspaper, later on Packers Everywhere, the former because while working in the Middle East, I took a Packer Gnome around the world with me to show my Packer pride. Dubai, Bahrain, the UAE, Kiev, Paris, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Istanbul, around Saudi Arabia were among the places we visited. My family and I couldn’t wait for the start of this season to cheer the Packers on.
I was disturbed by the player protests which began with Kaepernick and his parroting of the false BLM narrative. But I could tolerate it as long as it was isolated players. But now, suddenly, it has become the official team position of the Packers. We are a bitterly divided nation. Sports was one of the very few refuges from that. Come game day, it was about the sport and the teams.
But now, politics has been injected onto the field at every game, and apparently, the NFL’s official position is to not only allow but encourage this Social Justice Warrior behavior. The original protests were based on a lie, that large numbers of black men were being shot down by police. A quick look at the facts makes that claim ludicrous. The greatest threat to black men is being shot by other black men. Ignoring that and concentrating on the handful of police shootings is like ignoring your lung cancer and focusing on your acne.
Now, the protests have changed into some amorphous “unity against injustice and oppression,” when in fact they are just a temper tantrum because the President called the players on their protests, forcing them to claim they weren’t disrespecting the symbols of our nation — the flag and anthem — a patent lie considering the statements made by multiple players. Watching Kaepernick wear his “pig socks” and his “Che” shirt was greatly offensive to me as a Ukrainian whose family had to flee Communism, and a veteran of the Cold War.
I don’t care what the players believe or do off the field. But I refuse to be lectured about how unjust and oppressive the United States is while trying to watch a football game. Now, after your meetings, the official position of the league is to inject itself in politics and use the NFL brand and platform for “reform.” If I want a lecture, I can go to a Hollywood movie, watch any TV program, listen to any one of hundreds of “comedians,” or read the New York Times or Time Magazine. I don’t need the aggravation of watching the entire Packers organization, or any other NFL team, essentially give the finger to fans like myself and about half the nation. I’ve got better things to do with my life.
So, I’ve taken down my Packer memorabilia. I’ve removed the stickers and plate holders from my car. I’ve cancelled Sunday Ticket, DirecTV, Sirius radio, and won’t be renewing my Game Pass. No more trips to Lambeau, or any other NFL venue. The collateral damage now includes hotels, airlines, bars, and restaurants. I’ll be several thousand dollars a year richer. The NFL will be that much poorer.
If the Green Bay Packers and the NFL come back to their senses, and get back to football, and stop with the politics and virtue signaling, I’ll be back. If not, then good bye and good riddance.
Here’s my take on the NFL. They have decided, like Kimmel and Hollywood, that they can do without part of their fan base. Less trouble with their black players. Favorable press from the MSM. Some relief from the SJW crowd, for awhile anyway. They get to rebrand as hipper, and “progressive”. Who cares if they lose some Old White Guys in Flyover Country…..
And you could have included many others, e.g. Robinson, Taylor, Jeter, etc. etc. etc.
Last week, this asinine idea was floating around:
And since the meeting , that sentiment has been confirmed:
How can such a financially successful entity as the NFL so completely misdiagnose the problem? This is the biggest sellout to progressivism ever, and it will cost the owners and the players dearly if they go this route.
Indeed. I usually attend two Raiders games a year. None this year and for these same reasons. The NFL can KMA for this travesty and the responsibility lies entirely with one man, Roger Goodell.
My last moment paying any attention to the NFL was the moment Jerry Jones’ knee touched the playing field. I thought maybe I would sneak around and check the scores of my Cowboys and my Texans, but it hasn’t happened. I just don’t care. I heard what happened to Green Bay’s quarterback, but only because some suggested Colin as his replacement, which stirred up my regular news feed for a day.
Thank you for an excellent post. I appreciate that letter and I hope somehow Goodell and Murphy see it.
Well I sent copies to the NFL and Packers by certified mail…
Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope it makes a difference.
Condolezza Rice for commissioner.
I’ve always wanted to see a Steelers home game in Pittsburgh. That has now been crossed off my bucket list, and for the wrong reason . . .
You can’t allow racist, bigoted protest against some imaginary oppression on the part of police and white people and then yell “UNITY!”.
The only unity that should be called for is unity against racism in all its forms and right now, this issue has drawn attention to the massive problem of bigotry and racism in the black community. This isn’t about veterans. This is about violent hatred that is seething in many of our urban black neighborhoods and the false, politically motivated, narratives that are feeding it. The NFL could be a force for good here but they have decided to be protectors of a great evil in our midst.
We now have a third political party (sorry Libertarians), the GOP, the DNC, and the NFL.
Great letter.
This is easy for me to say because I was never a huge fan, but I’m starting to realize that I don’t see how I could return even if the players started standing.
These players, coaches, and owners have said they do not respect this country and they will not start respecting the country if they are forced to stand. They are free to hate this country, but they can hate the country on somebody else’s nickel.
I suppose if they offered a heart felt apology to the country and their fans acknowledging their insults and how misguided they were by emulating a full-on communist like Colin Kaepernick, and dedicating themselves to stopping black-on-Black crime, I could come back. But they won’t, so I won’t.
Having said that, I would never say that in a letter to them because then I’ve already written myself out of their consciousness.
What a great post!! Football has always been the great event that brings a city together. How well I remember the Seahawks’ parade through downtown Seattle, after we won the Superbowl, when we all came together with pride as one. Injecting politics in football makes me sick at heart.
Latest I heard was “the protests will continue until Kaepernick has a job”. Now the real agenda is revealed.
Injecting politics into anything supposed to be an escape makes us sick. This is how the left destroys all that is good in our country. Now they are on the violent march (antifa), and I’m afraid violence is the only way left to defeat them. If the police aren’t allowed to do it, my worry is it will fall on the rest of us citizens.
Pray it isn’t so . . .
This really goes back to the Ray Rice stuff. Goodell doesn’t have any principles at all, it is all about keeping his job, and when the video came out showing that he had rolled when asked to do so by Ravens owner Bischiotti because the Ravens really needed Rice, he was a prime candidate to be fired. He was saved by his cave on the Adrian Peterson case, and has been tap-dancing for political correctness ever since.
Remember, the business model of the NFL is for the rich owner to get the local city to put up cash for new stadia; if there is too much noise in the local community, the cash subsidy is at risk. The name of the game is to stay out of the newspapers in any negative context whatever. Hence, the cave-in to left-wing publicity hounds like Michael Bennett and Kaepernick. Having ruined the NBA, the NFL is the next target.
Wow, that’s putting your “money” where your mouth is. No offense to them, but this statement is much more impactful than from you then from other members that decry the NFL and then admit they don’t/never did watch football to begin with. I guess this situation was inevitable considering the way sports media has swung further and further left. My friends and I had already pretty much turned pregame, halftime, and postgame shows off (NBC being the very worst) as well as a general disdain for ESPN and their SJW culture.
I’m not really blaming him, but I still think it was all dying out until Trump had to bring it up again as red meat for a crowd at a rally. Then his tweets along with Pence’s staged walkout in Indy kept it at the forefront and basically made it all about Trump for the idiot left. The entire protest is a huge loser for the players and league with the fanbase but I guess anything’s worth being on the “right side of history”……..
I’m guessing Goodell is trying to pile up some brownie points with the left to buy some “goodwill” over the concussion/CTE issue. This is false hope and amounts to a miscalculation over how the left goes about its business, but Goodell has apparently not learned that. Or is so concerned about the concussion issue that he’ll try anything.
In the meantime, the most resolutely anti-Goodell team in the NFL, quarterbacked by a Trump supporter and owned by a Trump buddy, invites you to fandom. And don’t believe that stuff about “cheating.”
I think this is right on astute. The NFL is doing the equivalent of having sex with a black widow. The left wants them destroyed. The owners better wake up and fire Goodell. But heck, they may be as pc as him. If it were my business, these guys would be standing for the anthem or sitting for the game. If an employee showed complete disregard for my bottom line, as an owner, why would I want him on my team?
Yeah, you’re blaming him, and you are not correct. It was not “dying out” – it was growing, but the MSM was doing their best to keep it out of the news. I believe that Trump had finally had enough at the moment that POS Pop Warner coach forced his entire football team of children to kneel during the national anthem. It was shortly after that when Trump tweeted about the NFL. Had he not done so, I believe that entire teams would now be taking a knee, or worse. Yes, that first weekend after the speech was in retaliation to Trump, I agree, but it also showed Americans that the NFL was backing these miscreant players completely and not just allowing them to do their protests, which gave the American public the choice of agreeing with it, or turning their backs on the NFL and the hatred coming from those players.
Indeed. I’ve not watched a single Seahawks game this year, and I’ve been a serious fan these past ten years. No longer.
When we lose the cheerleader man, we’re in serious trouble.
Were people here this upset when in March 2003, we launched a hugely expensive offensive against the People of Iraq, a nation that never attacked us? (And whose people had accepted our own CIA’s installed dictator, Saddam Hussein.) And that offensive went on to cost us at least 6,500 American lives, countless wounded, some 6 to 9 trillions of dollars and still to this day remains not exactly in the victory column of wars the USA has won.
But whatever. I mean FOOTBALL!
Go away Pack Players. Go.
Club, Fan loyalty and heartbreak will remain when this generation of miscued players, coaches, managers and staffers have long gone.
We launched an offensive against the unelected government of Iraq run by a dictator and an essentially Fascist party, which we had every reason to believe was working on WMD’s and funding terrorism.
And who had previously invaded another sovereign nation, annexed it saying the previously sovereign nation never existed, was pushed out of the annexed country it said no longer existed by a multi-national force under the UN, signed an armistice treaty ceasing hostilities with the UN and refused to live up to his obligations under the armistice, so the US went to the UN to seek action.
If we didn’t force Iraq to honor its commitments under a treaty, then treaties would have become meaningless.
I’m not convinced a world where treaties are worthless is desirable, but I recognize I am in the minority on many views.
Lighten up, Francis.
I differ that it was dying out, but that’s okay. Trump adroitly picked the right battle to have. Let’s discuss whether respect for the flag and the anthem (i.e., these United States) is important. Flush out those who can’t state, with dignity and equanimity, that this is a great country without “buts,” “however’s” and “still and all.”
Symbols are important. I think this was the right battle to choose, and the right battle to fight. Make the idiot left look like the idiot left.
Francis who?
Boss, you’re a great man. I am sure I don’t need to remind you that trying to use logic with folks who just blindly Hate Trump reminds me of that saying about wrestling with a pig. Mind you, I’m not calling anyone a pig. I think these folks are good Americans and they would fight to the death going up against people disrespecting the American Flag. However, since in this case with the NFL they would have to take Trump’s side, their Hate Trump says they can’t do it, so they have to take the NFL’s side. That’s got to hurt a little bit, defending scum like Kaepernick.