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I Just Decided not to Get the NFL Package!
I was waiting to see how the National Anthem situation would play out and I’m not surprised that a player chose to kneel. Brandon Marshall, a Denver linebacker and former teammate of Coward Kaepernick, showed his solidarity with his old frat brother by shunning the flag of the country that helps him get a 7 figure salary. Some Seahawks are contemplating the same thing.
I stood by the NFL as a customer even when they had murderers, rapists, wife beaters, child beaters, cheaters, drug abusers, and alcoholics run amok. I bought the NFL package every year as long as I can remember but no more. If those guys want to protest the flag so be it but I’m protesting with my pocketbook. I will not pay good money this year to go to any games. Even if one person on my beloved Bruins hockey team refused to stand I’d take the same stance and shun their product. There are consequences for everything unless you’re name is Clinton. I do understand the NFL won’t notice or care nor will anybody really but I’ll feel better about myself. We’ve all had friends or family serve and some have paid quite a price. The least a decent human being can do is to stand up as long as physically able. Whatever the protestors collective message is doesn’t matter one iota to me and until the players are standing for the flag the NFL can enjoy a season or more without my money.
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What’s so ironic about the whole thing is I thought the guy was Italian or something. Then he starts with this crap and now he looks like Jackie Brown!
Fight the Power Doc Jay – good on you.
Let’s not forget these paragons of patriotism having been charging (accepting money from) the Armed Services to provide Honor Guards, fly-overs etc. Didn’t knw about that till last year – and those same owners haven’t been shamed in to refusing the money.
I wish I could stop watching the NFL but I can not. You see I pretty much gave up on them back when everything became a shade of pink. It was at that time I realized that the NFL cared less about football and more about PC politics.
Totally agree. Sports are for a break from reality, not to make us more socially conscious.
Why is it that the only allegedly acceptable social consciousness raising has to come from leftists? The left has done more to destroy civil society.
The hypocrisy of the NFL is almost at a Clintonian level.
Tom Brady gets suspended because he takes a little air pressure out of a football. Never mind he still has to find receivers and make the throws. If all it takes to be a great QB is lower pressure I would be in the NFL along with every other wannabe jock.
The Dallas Cowboys want to wear a patch in honor of fallen policemen and the NFL rejects the request.
Meanwhile… Kaepernick and some copycats are disrespecting our American Flag and the NFL approves of that behavior.
DocJay and others commenting here are right. The NFL deserves to experience lower ticket sales and lower TV ratings. I will focus on College Football instead. The Miami Dolphins will probably be mediocre so I am just avoiding disappointment anyway.
You beat me to it Docjay, I was actually putting together my first post here based on my skipping, for first time since its inception as a Dir.TV customer ( now ATT) the NFL Ticket, and, I did it after the last regular season game last year….
What pushed me over the edge?
Ray Rice clocks his fiancee wife GF whatever, I mean its on tape, and after doing their level best to pretend it didn’t happen, so a ‘valuable’ ‘playa’ would not get sidelined for the season……they had the nerve to make US sit through ads put together by the usual vacuous glitterati as in the ” No More” campaign ( remember the super bowl spot?)
So, in affect, we pay penance for the league colluding to sweep a guy who Mike Tysons his significant other , under the rug…….IF I hadn’t, this whole anthem thing would have.
They won’t the Cowboys post a sticker on their helmet commemorating fallen Police Officers, yet Colin Kaepernicks Pig socks and kneeling doesn’t draw a flag?
The NFL is drunk on money, if there ever was a time it can be said, the ‘Game’ is meaningless and its just about the Benjamins? I think we’re there, totally………and they can move on minus my Benjamins.
This is yet another media stunt, where the “look at me” celebrities say they want to provoke a conversation. No they don’t. They want everyone else to listen to them, but they don’t want to listen in return. Celebrities want a one-sided “conversation,” where they get to speak, but they don’t have to listen.
Any idiot can speak. That isn’t courage. It takes courage to listen.
So instead of staging a stunt where you make a statement, try staging a stunt where you listen. Maybe then I’ll be impressed. If you want to preen that America doesn’t deserve respect because kids like Michael Brown are being unjustly oppressed, then you’d better have the courage to hear that Michael Brown was a thug who caused his own demise.
For this Chiefs fan, that was as sick as I’ve ever been at the end of a game. Still, Derrick Thomas’s performance was unlike anything I’d ever seen or will see.
I’m done with the Kaepernick thing, it’s been played out….who cares…the guy doesn’t even start.
His grievance is a weak contrivance and everyone with a clue knows that …so let all the poseurs who want to take some pretend “social justice” (which is a made up notion which means whatever you want it to mean but leads the barely paying attention to think it’s something “noble and good”) sit down or take one knee and have at it until everyone recognizes the act as the ridiculous self aggrandizing “hey look at me I’m important” nonsense it is.
Saw a clip with Ray Lewis yesterday where he basically said that if you are going into these communities every day and helping these people and witnessing outrageous stuff and you want to call attention then fine. But if you are just calling attention to something you’ve heard about then no.
I think that’s essentially correct and the crux of the problem.
Think this could have been the problem?
As a public school student and now teacher, I have stood for and proudly said the Pledge an average of over 130 times a year since 1975. As a teacher, the courts have ruled that I can compel students to stand for but not say the Pledge, and I’m fine with that. I do encourage students to say it and try to lead by example. But not saying it is their right, and as disagreeable things go, not respecting the flag for me ranks well below most of the charges you listed above.
That said, the player has his right to do what he does, and you have the right to do what you have in response. I applaud you taking the stand.
Good for you Docjay. I have a feeling sport in general was better when it didn’t pay a living wage, thus the athletes were real people with day jobs (like butcher, policeman, accountant) that you could relate to.
I dont know about American sports, but Australian sports, like the Olympics, were semi-amateur until around the early 90s. Once they started getting paid full-time to play, and get much higher earnings then the average joe, then the superiority complex set in.
then came emotional melodramas on the field, like crying at a losing game, symbolic protests, over-indulgent celebrating, sports journalist-celebrities, nauseating camera-work, theme rounds, and anything else at odds with “just a game”.
Good for you Doc!
I’m with you, brother.
I saw something where the Seahawks have said something about protesting as a team. It’s ridiculous. If all these people are so concerned about equality for poor black people, then why aren’t they giving up their massive paychecks to the cause? I can really see how much the “cause” means to you when the most activism you can be bothered to do is sit on your a__ or make a few tweets on Twitter.
Really grinds my gears.
Yes and that too.
I cancelled my NFL Sunday Ticket last week and told Direct TV why I was doing it. I have many better things I can do on Sunday afternoons. I quit watching the Sunday night games last year because of that idiot Bob Costas. Even though it’s just 3 hours on Sunday nights, it seemed like my weekends were a lot longer and I got more stuff done.
It would be nice if a major sponsor or two objected. Can you imagine what the NFL would do if Budweiser (which replaced “Budweiser” on their cans with “America” over the Summer) laid down the law and said no more advertising until players show a minimum amount of respect and stand up? They would have to fill their breaks with PSA’s and promos for CSI Walla Walla.
We watch faithfully every week as my husband is a huge fan in general and we both play fantasy football. It is a waste of time, as is any sort of consumptive entertainment. I usually try to do something productive while watching, like sewing or other little DIY projects I can do on the sit.
If we had a conservative Garrison Keillor, here’s how the skit goes:
First, the deluded black social justice warriors with Caribbean bank accounts take a knee to protest whatever blackety black agitprop is current.
Then, conservative players (and there are many) kneel in protest of the country sanctioning a million abortions each year.
Then players from hard luck towns in the Mississippi Valley kneel in protest of immigration and trade policies which have hollowed out their towns.
Then players from service academies kneel in protest over VA scandals.
Then punters and kickers kneel to protest the career long microagressions they have suffered
And we conclude with everyone kneeling for the national anthem.
Hmm. Since you’re a Texan, one has to assume you were a major Cowboys fan. How did you become a Seahawks fan?
Doc et al: Interesting consensus here. Truth be told I checked out of the NBA a decade ago. The gangsta, hip-hop, self importance of it all was just too much to take. Haven’t watched an NFL game in 5 years for similar reasons. The more self important these guys get, the harder it is to invite them in to your home on the weekend.
One “Like” just isn’t enough here. A “Gazillion” Likes! Go Vols!
It’s why I love hockey. The players get paid, but not obscene amounts, and, for the most part, they aren’t full of themselves because most of them are essentially unknown folks from small towns.
Does anyone disagree that sports commentary has become insufferably left-wing over the past decade.
There were always self-impressed lefties like Lupica and Deford and the silly identification of free agency with lunch bucket unionism was beyond parody.
But today the Mordor of smug, reflexive leftism is ESPN, my go-to spot for front page WNBA updates.
Oh no, it’s definitely become insufferably left-wing. ESPN wrote a glowing article about how Kaepernick was full of admirable character for his decision to sit on the bench during the national anthem and they’ve been writing glowing articles about Roger Goodell and his amazing decision-making skillz for years especially when he’s been increasingly vocal about supporting SJW efforts.
Until NFL players start talking about this all they are doing is engaging in gestures. They should clean up their own locker rooms. Giving your girlfriend or wife a catchers mask is not an appropriate gift.
Chicago shootings
Yearly totals
Jan. 1, 2016 – Sept. 9, 2016
2,953 shooting victims
Jan. 1, 2015 – Dec. 31, 2015
2,988 shooting victims
Bob Costas is a tool.
ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball is only watchable with the sound turned off. Three people in the booth is insufferable.