Contributors

Showing posts with label NFL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NFL. Show all posts

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

America Is Already Great

Here's why...


Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Sunday, September 14, 2014

The Changing Times

It's been a bad week for the NFL. The elevator video of Ray Rice punching his wife Janay and knocking her out was terrible. Adrian Peterson taking a wood switch to his step son and leaving welts and cuts is simply awful. I've enjoyed watching AP play for my beloved Vikings over the years but these recent revelations are simply too much. Both he and Ray Rice should never play in the NFL again.

Although each situation is markedly different, there is an overriding issue that bind them together in commonality. To illustrate this similarity, I have to begin by noting how thoroughly sick I am of the media and their race to prove which one of them is a bigger defender of abused women. I'm a very proud liberal and Democrat but I am completely disgusted by outlets like ThinkProgress, HuffPo, and MSNBC for their hyper over reaction to the Ray Rice story. Here's the deal, folks.

No one is going to dispute that Ray Rice is awful. He should be charged with assault, not a petty misdemeanor. But guess what? Janay Rice is also awful. She spit on him and charged him. That does not give him the right to do what he did but it most certainly means she's not a passive victim from an ABC afterschool special about spousal abuse as the media is making her out to be. That's what makes the Ray Rice story different from the AP story. AP's step son was a passive victim who simply got into an argument over a video game with this brother.

As soon Janay's payday was threatened, she showed her true colors. Both Ray Rice and his wife are emotionally unintelligent people who need years of intensive therapy to be better members of our society. So does Adrian Peterson. So do millions of other couples or parents who think it's OK to solve their problems through violence. This is a problem within the NFL but it's really our society as a whole that has failed to address this issue properly.

If the media wants to perform an actual public service here, they should stop trying to get an "A" in Women's Studies 101 and start promoting good mental and emotional health for all US citizens. Encourage people to go to therapy for their problems and become more emotionally intelligent. EVERYONE needs therapy and the day domestic violence ends is the day the stigma about mental and emotional health is gone with people talking about it as openly as they talk about going to the dentist.

At an even higher level, our revulsion to Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson represents just how much society has changed over the past fifty years. I recall a debate on TSM a couple of years back in which one of biggest fans (DJ) advocated corporal punishment. His support of this shows just how out of step his mentality is with our current society. What we are seeing with these stories is a shift away from that "golden age of America" that conservatives childishly pine for on a daily basis.

There was no fucking golden age of America. Blacks were treated like shit, gay people were arrested, men beat their wives and got away with it because women were considered inferior, and dads whopped their kids leaving welts and cuts. It was a very emotionally unintelligent culture and we are seeing the remnants of that being swept away.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Michael Sam Is An American Hero

Missouri defensive end Michael Sam told The New York Times and ESPN he is gay, and the 2014 NFL Draft prospect plans to become the first openly gay player in the NFL. Sam figures to be one of the top defensive draft picks this year. I was born in Columbia, Missouri and have been a Tiger fan since birth so his honesty makes me very proud indeed.

Some are saying that Sam has diminished his chances from being picked high in the draft but I don't. The people that run teams in the NFL want to win. Period. If Sam is a good player, he will get picked and it looks like he is top notch. He ranks among the top pass rushers in the SEC last year with 10.5 regular-season sacks (he had another one in the Cotton Bowl), boosting his NFL draft stock despite his lack of size for the defensive end position (6-foot-2, 255 pounds). He was also voted Team MVP by his coaches and teammates this year who have known for the past five seasons that he is gay.

Make no mistake about it, though, this is a big deal and Michael Sam, like Jackie Robinson before him, is an American hero. The NFL's culture is notoriously anti-gay with the locker room stuck in the 1950s. Most people under the age of 30 won't give a shit about this but the older folks might get bunged up. It will be interesting to see what happens. For me, it's just another wonderful indicator of the progress we have made as culture.

Michael, good luck with your career. I know it will be a bloody magnificent one!

Sunday, February 02, 2014

Jesse Ventura on Racism in the NFL

Something to mull over as we settle in for the game this evening...


Thursday, January 02, 2014

Stunning...

I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot

Near the end of November, several teammates and I were walking into a specialist meeting with Coach Priefer. We were laughing over one of the recent articles I had written supporting same-sex marriage rights, and one of my teammates made a joking remark about me leading the Pride parade. As we sat down in our chairs, Mike Priefer, in one of the meanest voices I can ever recall hearing, said: "We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows." The room grew intensely quiet, and none of the players said a word for the rest of the meeting.

What to do with people like Mike Priefer? I try to be tolerant but there is so much anger, fear and hatred with people like him. "We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows." ? This would be why I chuckle (and not because it's funny) when people like this bloviate about liberals being like Nazis. People like Priefer are the ones that really want to round up people and inter or execute them.

Honestly, there is no reasoning with the Priefers of the world. Interestingly, he's a great example of why I don't want to have guns banned in this country. If he decides to act on his beliefs, he'll need to be put down.