Tag: NFL

The Football Psyop

 

So I’ve been reading the latest theories out there and let me see if I truly understand what’s happening in the world of sports and pop culture. In case you’ve been vacationing in Greenland for the past six months and haven’t been following the important news, pop star Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce are dating. She shows up to all of his home games and many of his road games and sits in the luxury box seats with the Kelce family and the wife of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. She cheers wildly whenever Kelce does something great, which is pretty often since Kelce is a very good player. After the game, they kiss a lot, just like people who are dating tend to do.

Or, maybe, they aren’t actually dating… According to the latest theory, the Swift and Kelce relationship is actually an intricate psyop and is totally under the control of the CIA. Swift and Kelce are only dating to increase interest in NFL games and the NFL is scripting the games so that the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl. After the Chiefs win the Super Bowl, which as a result of all of this free publicity will surely be the most watched event in human history, both Swift and Kelce will announce their support for Joe Biden and this will give Biden the final push he needs to be reelected president.

Jim Brown R.I.P.

 

I saw Jim Brown at a Broncos vs. Browns game at the old Mile High Stadium.  That was when a fan could walk on the outer perimeter of the field — unheard of today. A friend and I walked up to the visiting team entrance, they pull a temporary fence across the fan track while the team comes out. Jim, in civies, African cap and retired, rolled out. And when I say he rolled,  that’s exactly what I mean — the Jim Brown Roll. Let me describe: he kind of tucked his chin down near his shoulder, and heal-to-toe walked, eyes ominously straight ahead.

My friend yelled out “Jim, Jim Brown” multiple times. No effect.  Jim rolled on. If a brick wall had jumped in front of him, he would not have blinked,  but rolled right through it. The wall may have exploded and killed us all, but Jim would have rolled on.

This week Dennis dishes on the settlement between Dominion Voting Systems and his former employer and then wonders about whether we or A.I. will be the masters of the future.

Mike Ozanian of Forbes SportsMoney drops by to talk about the $6B price tag on the Washington Commanders, the unique place in our culture of the National Football League and the collapse of the Regional Sports Network business as Bally Sports goes belly up and Warner Bros. Discovery bails.

A Pinch of Incense

 

When the Roman Empire persecuted Christians, they provided an easy out. All the believer had to do was offer some incense to the gods and they would be set free.

One of their victims was Polycarp, the elderly bishop of Smyrna, a city known today as Izmir in Turkey. Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle and later discipled Irenaeus of Lyons, another early saint.

In 155 AD, he was swept up in a fierce persecution, yet offered no resistance. When soldiers burst into his home, the bishop welcomed them cheerfully, ordering that a meal be prepared for them. He asked leave to pray, and the now sheepish Roman guards allowed it before reluctantly taking him to the Proconsul.

Join Jim and Greg as they are not only glad there is a Speaker of the House but that the deal got done because Rep. Chip Roy and others demanded a more conservative rules package – that hopefully can pass. They also enjoy watching Mayors Lori Lightfoot of Chicago and Eric Adams of New York City feuding with fellow Democrat Gov. Jared Polis over Polis sending migrants to their cities. And they do a double take at the news President Biden plans to run for re-election as a moderate.

Are You Ready For Some PAY Football?

 

How much would you be willing to pay to be the exclusive home to an NFL game? How about $67M per game? When you break it down, that’s what Amazon Prime is paying the league for its package of Thursday Night Football that debuted Thursday Night.

I expect the coverage to be unremarkable. Amazon has done nothing but hire broadcast network veterans to run the show. For everyone to get comfortable with each other, they’ve been taping practice games for weeks. Will there be moments that Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit step on each other? Maybe. But the only wildcard in this pack is the production truck itself. While it comes from one of the leading providers of remote facilities, Game Creek Video, it’s brand new. And brand new anything that complicated comes with surprises. That’s why Bezos paid for all those practice games.

The real question is will the audience be able to find it? Your benchmark will be $16.4 million, that’s the combined numbers between the Fox/NFL Network simulcast of the same package last season. Interestingly, Amazon is only promising advertisers 75% of that, around 12M per game. (For perspective, the worst draw in the NFL – a matchup between two losing teams late in the season draws around 4M on a Sunday afternoon.)

Join Jim and Greg as they wade into the rare territory of giving credit to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for planning to visit Taiwan in the face of Chinese threats against her. Sadly, President Biden has once again displayed his default position of weakness on this issue as well. They also rip Paul Krugman for trying to claim that the economy is actually really strong and that people think their own financial situation is fine but the media keeps convincing everyone things are bad. And they dissect the six-game suspension for Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson after two dozen women accused him of sexual harassment or worse but no criminal charges were filed.

 

Join Jim and Greg as they serve up three bad martinis tempered with some brief banter about the NFL Draft. First, they wince as the economy actually suffered negative growth in the first quarter of 2022. Then, they hammer the Biden administration for its new “Disinformation Governance Board,” which appears to be little more than an effort to stop speech it doesn’t like. And they react to a major escalation in state-run Russian commentary, which now openly refers to the Ukrainian conflict as a holy war and frequently suggests the use of nuclear weapons.

 

Join Jim and Greg as they break down the economic, military, and political consequences of the Biden administration’s suspension of Russian oil imports. They also discuss the NFL suspending Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Calvin Ridley for gambling but also note how the NFL and other leagues have enthusiastically embraced the recent expansion of sports gaming.  And they weigh in on a new Quinnipiac poll showing that Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to defend their nation from an invasion.

Join Jim and Greg as they serve up three bad martinis to close out the week. And two of them come from President Biden’s interview with NBC News. First, they react to Biden calling Lester Holt a “wise guy” for asking the president to explain why he said inflation would be temporary. They also cringe as Biden essentially calls his military leaders liars for suggesting he was caught flat-footed by the unravelling of Afghanistan. And they shudder as the prosecutor’s office in Loudoun County, Virginia, hires a convicted sex offender without doing a background check.

NFL Boycott

 

I have been a big NFL fans since the 1960s. Up through 2015, I would frequently watch two or more games a week. Since 2016, I have watched one game in total (a Super Bowl a couple of years ago while flying on Southwest). The combination of the Kaepernick controversy and increasing wokeness on the part of professional sports in general has turned me off watching them. How do other Ricochetti feel about this? Are you watching less football today?

Join Jim and Greg as they give a shout out to the 50,000 Canadian truckers bringing their convoy to Ottawa to fight against their government’s vaccine mandate that’s threatening their livelihoods. They also shake their heads as now President Biden and Ukrainian President Zelensky are at odds on when to expect a Russian invasion, whether the U.S. is sending the military aid Ukraine actually needs and more. And they’re curious at Biden’s timetable for announcing a Supreme Court nominee and the left’s overreaction to criticism that Biden is prioritizing the wrong criteria in his search.

 

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome Senate Republicans making their decisions about running in 2022 and with two incumbents deciding to run again, the GOP odds of taking the majority probably improved. They also fume as New York City Mayor Eric Adams decides to support a city council resolution allowing 800,000 non-citizens in the city to vote in municipal elections. And they’re stunned as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor claims – in oral arguments – that 100,000 kids are seriously ill with COVID and that many of them are on ventilators. None of that is anywhere close to accurate.

Dan Reeves: Quiet Strength and Pride

 

Often the quieter but constantly steadier sounds are the ones that leave the longest-lasting echoes. There may be loud blasts at times that seem to drown out those quieter ones. But the real test of their quality comes after that first blast when their sudden waves have just as quickly faded and the quieter, more dependable ones are still there reminding us of the qualities we need for the long haul.

Dan Reeves may or may not receive the public notice he has always deserved but has rarely gotten. He died on the 1st of January, just in time to miss being on all those lists of 2021 notables who were lost the 12 months before. There will be 364 more days for the 2022 list to fill up, providing distance to his passing and clouding all that should be said about him.

Rest in Peace, John Madden

 

John Madden (right) with his longtime play-by-play man, Pat Summerall.

Legendary NFL coaching and broadcaster John Madden unexpectedly died Tuesday morning. He was 85 years old.

Madden was a wildly successful head coach of the Oakland Raiders, garnering a 103-32-7 record and besting the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI. He then stepped off the field and into the broadcasting booth to become football’s most beloved color commentator.

Three Crosses in the NFL

 

I caught the end of the Monday Night Football game, in which the New Orleans Saints beat the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle. As the camera panned over the players greeting and hugging each other across teams on the field immediately after the game, one big Saints player (a saint?) seemed to have stitches on his right cheekbone. Then we got another, much closer shot.

The stitches were actually an eyeblack patch applied below the eye. It was a black sticker with three thin gold crosses, the center cross elevated. Yes, in the season where the NFL has officially embraced the Marxist BLM ideology, a black player has chosen to display his Christian faith instead. The three crosses, the central cross prominent, represent Christ crucified between the two thieves.

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome a new CNN poll showing more and more Americans want nothing to do with the Democrats’ big spending plans on terrible programs. They also unload on President Biden for begging for help on energy prices from oil and gas companies after his policies to kill fossil fuels predictably sent prices soaring. And they discuss the appalling bias of Katie Couric, who admits in her new book that she heavily edited a quote from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to “protect” her after Ginsburg scolded the NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem.

[Member Post]

 

For two years, I told Bears fans to shut their emotion faucet off for a second and wait for Mitch Trubisky to be replaced properly. Said it at sports bars, said it on social media, said it on the street. He wasn’t ever going to be a hall of famer, but they won with him […]

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