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Are NFL Executives and WSJ Writers Actually this Stupid?
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The article devotes one sentence, really half a sentence, to the refusal to stand, BLM terrorist movement inspired, crap on the flag garbage as maybe just maybe a teensy contributor to the 10% drop in viewership.
It’s possible the writer, Joe Flint, knows the real reason and he’s lying but I doubt that. The only other explanation is that he’s ignorant of truth and human nature. He lists off moronic reason after moronic reason, like hey Adrian Peterson is hurt or Tom Brady has been suspended as possibilities. Then he goes on about Trump/Clinton as if that’s the reason and end the end scratches his head and says it’s all going to be OK.
Once a never miss games kind of fan I am barely watching anything beyond reviewing the highlights of the teams I follow. Somewhere between Breast Cancer Awareness month and games on Thursdays I suppose I had a twinge or two but the overwhelming reason is the refusal to stand movement. They have my refusal to watch movement and apparently I’m not alone. The only thing that shocks me is that the NFL is actually so stupid they haven’t figured it out yet or too scared to say it out loud. My guess is that they’re too scared.
Published in General
Oops this was covered on the front page. Sorry.
I watched our local high school football team, Bigfork Vikings, this past Friday on the 7th to see what they did during the National Anthem. They all stood with their hand over heart, facing our flag. I was so proud of them. I can watch the game from my balcony or apt windows as it overlooks the football field. If I am out on the balcony I also stand with hand over heart.
http://www.maxpreps.com/high-schools/bigfork-vikings-(bigfork,mt)/football/home.htm
I don’t care how good the cause is, football players shouldn’t wear pink!
The P.R and reputation for the NFL has taken a huge hit the last few years. Domestic violence, brain injuries the clunky way Goodell handles everything and now a bunch of superficial limousine SJWs showing off their street cred. Mix in more commercial breaks and replay reviews, over restrictive taunting penalties and not focusing on the quality of the product. I’m finding fewer and fewer games as a must watch. Plus baseball’s still on.
… huh. I didn’t realize it was a movement beyond the one idiot in San Francisco. Just shows how much I follow this stuff, beyond my fantasy team and that’s all online.
Yes, I think fans like you should be more vocal. Perhaps an opinion piece in that same WSJ? Or maybe talk with Jon Gabriel about working something out. I know there are people here with the pull to at least get something read by a person over there…
This is something we’ve talked about on Flyover Country many times. The better the cause, the less we should engage in this sort of meaningless grandstanding. Baseball does it, too, and it is absolutely worthless. More likely, people feel good for the 25 seconds and then figure the job is done. It is just as likely that this sort of nonsense is actually worse for the causes they claim to support.
I haven’t watched much football, but that goes back a few seasons. There were too many instances of the NFL politicizing itself.
The threats to pull the super bowl from places like Indianapolis and Arizona left too bad a taste in my mouth to keep following closely.
Like all major organizations, the marketing sections tend to get infested with youth focused and trendy shallow people who have the cultural wisdom of a house fly.
Sometimes the recommendations they provide, backup up by specious research influence the leftward drift of corporations , run not by owners but by professional managers who worry about how they will be perceived at cocktail parties and fund raising galas.
It is part of our “Educated In Diploma Only” syndrome.
Yes, football executives can be this stupid. Or at least pretend to be stupid for political reasons. Just like the deliberate stupidity last year with the Tom Brady witchhunt.
It bothers me when I see a man in a pink shirt.
I’m headed out to see Sequoias with the fam. Last night we stayed in Sutter Creek in Amador County, gold country if you will. It was homecoming week and the quaint 1850’s town all came out for the parade honing the Big Blue Buffaloes.
Like water seeking it’s level I found a bar, the Sutter Hotel, to watch an exciting MLB ending to the pitching duel last night.
Now off to the trees and the caves and the wineries.
Yep!
As a Jet fan my urge to watch football pretty much ended with week three . . .but that is nothing new.
Personally, I think they should leave all the players in the locker room until after the national anthem. That way, they can have whatever tantrum they choose, and no-one will be be obliged to watch it. That shouldn’t matter, if they are acting out of principle, but, apparently it does–some unremarkable Womens Soccer League “star” went on a profanity laced rant because she was denied the opportunity to make a spectacle of herself in that manner last month.
My position is that the NFL should stand up for its players’ right of free speech, but that it is under no obligation to give any of them a national platform on which to proclaim their views. So, keep them off television, and they can say, or do, whatever they like.
Once they come on the field, the game starts, and the players are on the clock, anyone who veers off script should be suspended and fined.
The NFL, though, has largely done this to itself through its politically correct pandering to whatever Lefty cause du jour it’s celebrating any particular month. I’m not saying some of these causes aren’t worthy, but dressing up football players in pink? Come on . . . . We’ve had a thread just about every year for as long as I’ve been on Ricochet about how sick people are of that.
I’d also complain about the legalism in the game. Football has become sport’s equivalent of “paralysis by regulation.” Every play is litigated. What’s a “catch?” What’s a “football move?” Rules are starting to choke the game. Every play could be a penalty (you can call holding every down).
A lot of that is TV, but most of it is that players don’t have the fundamentals to play the game without committing penalties. They don’t tackle anymore, they launch themselves missile-like into receivers, guaranteeing concussions, etc. (because it makes it onto SportsCenter). They liberalized the holding rule, but the new technique encourages borderline grabbing, and winds up increasing penalties instead of cutting them.
Laws have a way of slowly strangling things. That’s natural, of course, and it happens everywhere. Laws start out generalized, but then each individual case comes along, and there’s always a case that doesn’t fit into existing law. So, regulators start making the regulations more and more specific. It eventually gets to the point where the smallest aspect of everything you do is governed by some ticky-tacky regulation, leaving you in paralysis.
For me, pro football is reaching that point. Hank Stram used to say that they were “matriculating” the ball down the field. Now they’re litigating the ball down the field. We have enough of that in real life, I don’t want to pay to watch it on TV.
I flipped to the Bears/Lions game this weekend to check the score. They were in the middle of some “human interest” frippery. I left the room in search of beer and a sandwich. When I got back they were still at it, so I changed the channel to “Flip This Tenament” or “The Great Bigfoot Race” or whatever it was.
Since I couldn’t round up some Ricochetti a couple weeks ago out there, I took suggestions from the conference organizers, and ended up in Amador County, too. I was pointed at Taste in Plymouth, to be specific. I can’t remember ever having lamb that good.
{ Yes, it’s more enjoyable talking about food and drink than NFL execs. }
Exactly. When the player is in uniform they represent the NFL. If the NFL allows them to make political statements while in uniform and pays for the media to get their message out to the public, it means the NFL endorses their position. I tune in to the NFL to watch football. If I want politics I will tune into another station.
I am not mad at the players. I am mad at the NFL and therefore will find something else to do with my time.
@docjay– Till March of this year I had worked at NFL Films (a branch of the NFL Network) for a decade and most of the staff are pretty liberal. I knew about 3 or 4 conservatives, so this self-delusion does not surprise me. The NFL Network is headquartered in Culver City, California, near Hollywood, and it executives mirror the political atmosphere there. No doubt NFL Commissioner Goodell regards many NFL fans as ‘deplorables.’
Goodell makes $44 million a year, so if he doesn’t change course soon, I expect the NFL owners will have an unpleasant conversation with him.
I hope they don’t overreact to this by blaming NFL Red Zone–one of the greatest innovations ever in sports media. Watch all the games by watching none of the games.
I’ve been watching less and less over the last few years. I haven’t watched any so far this season.
Many of the reasons already mentioned contribute to it. Rule changes have hurt game play as already mentioned. All the pink is really annoying. Too much time on the sidelines so you can’t see the play develop before the snap. They even miss the snap on a regular basis. All the politics. Bob Costas.
Bad behavior from stars is another one. Stars seem to just miss criminal convictions, except Vick.
Baseball is getting that way too; the stupid replays (was he on the base the entire time the tag was being applied? Did the runner beat the ball to first by at least a nano-second?) Why even have the officials on the field? Just put them all in a booth in NY! It’s a human game, officiated by humans. Let the humans do it. Yes there are bad calls, but they didn’t delay the game by 15 minutes to review.
Are NFL Executives and WSJ writers actually this stupid?
Yeah. Pretty much.
One has to realize how downstream these folks are from reality and what it takes to shake them from their complacency. Tickets and advertising were sold out before the ship hit the sand. So neither the league or the networks have felt the hit yet. They’re hoping it just fades away.
You are a lucky man, DocJay! Great country up there. I know I probably would prefer walking around Sequoia’s too (Calaveras?), to watching NFL games. I live in SoCal so that kind of experience is limited. I love travelling through that part of California, and, luckily had a daughter as a UC Davis student the last few years that allowed my wife and I to finally do a bunch of travelling up there. Sigh… Oh, where were we? Oh, yeah, NFL games. No thanks any more for all the reasons listed above.
Goodell and the team owners have one chance to institute an NFL rule (as other leagues have) to require players to stand respectfully for The National Anthem. If they don’t do it soon, the NFL could spend many years in their own version of The Dark Ages . . .
My football watching time has dropped by probably 90% over the past 5 years, and has been replaced by (shock!) soccer. Here’s why:
The only people wearing pink on the football field should be the cheerleaders.
What? Who would have thought *you* would have anything to say about cheerleaders? I’m sure you don’t have any examples to share with us…
I’m sure I can find something around here…
There is a front page? I hardly go there.