2014 NFL Season Anti-Thread

[The_Admiral]

Hey everyone:

If we could limit this discussion to football-related matters, not the morality of beating one's child, that would be ideal.

Thanks.

Perhaps we can let this be the thread for those of us sitting this season out and commenting on the league's delightful non-football-related matters.

[AHcreative]

[CS85]

I'm certainly not sitting out the season. Can I still comment or am I part of the problem or something?

[The_Admiral]

Of course you can still comment, but yes, know that you are part of the problem.

[Nyk33]

I wonder which thread will have more posts from this day forward, this thread or the thread talking about what is actually happening on the field?

[Cosmic]

Porting over some comments to save the mods hassle:

Ironic that Adrian Peterson runs to the Bible to tell people not to judge him... when he's criticized for his judgment and punishment of someone else. He tweeted this out recently:

Perhaps you should read Bible quotes to your children when they misbehave instead of giving them scrotum welts.

I have spanked my child, but I only ever used an open palm. Sometimes it's just necessary. I think AP was just doing what he knew to be discipline and didn't know his own strength. That's what I got from his texts that were released. After the fact he realized he may have gone overboard, but still felt he did what was expected of him as a father. Maybe now he will learn that the old ways aren't exactly the right ways, and he will find seek out better ways to get the job done.

I felt like even if he really thought he went overboard, he didn't really feel remorse about it. It seemed more like he thought he was pretty much in the right, but that the mother would be mad. I didn't like the way he said one wound would "make her mad at me", like he didn't feel bad about it, but thought that the mother wouldn't like it. It sounds more like "You're gonna be mad at me, but I bought the kids ice cream while we were out."

[Nyk33]

Porting over some comments to save the mods hassle:

Ironic that Adrian Peterson runs to the Bible to tell people not to judge him... when he's criticized for his judgment and punishment of someone else. He tweeted this out recently:

This is nothing new.

Whenever a celebrity, athlete, or politician gets into trouble they will always go to the Bible or whatever holy book they happen to revere.

[Sanic]

1: Get accused of ________ abuse.

2: Get suspended.

3: Post bible verse.

4: ???

5: Profit!

[CS85]

I love the sport of football. I think the NFL is reaching a reckoning, in terms of it's on-the-field product: they have done far too much to curate a game that's dependent upon balance of run and pass by over-amending the rulebook and beating pass interference with a sledgehammer to the point where it is an unrecognizable puddle of a penalty that, like holding, can be called an every play.

The league is drunk on it's own success, celebrating themselves with belligerent glee at every possible occasion. Their mantra of "Protect The Shield" has morphed into a wartime mandate, where any negative publicity or threat to their money-swollen institution requires a sacrifice to save the lamb.

It's been a long time coming. The NFL spent many years pretending that this violent game didn't cultivate brain damage, preferring the multitudes of forgotten players die off without any utterance of medical evidence. With dogged insincerity, league officials did their best to keep brains away from laboratories while letting their shrewd legal team buy out lawsuit-happy retirees with a skinflint settlement.

And here we are the potential turning of the dismal tide - two high profile players committed violent acts against the weak that were too well documented for the NFL to bury while news sources caught the commissioner in a bog of lies. In a laughable effort, the NFL hired an independent investigator to quell detractors, yet their seemingly unbiased investigator works for a law firm that helped the same NFL negotiate a multi-billion dollar deal with DirecTV.

It's very popular, and appropriate, to chide the NFL for their behavior that makes us reminisce so vividly of Big Tobacco, Enron, and the government bailout programs of not so long ago. Yet I won't stop watching. Why? Because it won't make a difference. It doesn't matter if we watch or not because the entity is simply too large and it's audience too enormous. Plus the product is still pretty entertaining because at the heart of it all, football is a cool sport.

To those of you who are vehemently outraged to the point of boycotting the league, I respect your prerogative, but I don't see it's purpose besides satisfying your own personal qualms or making a show of it to hopefully influence a meager handful of others, at best.

- Roger Goodell

[infrared41]

To those of you who are vehemently outraged to the point of boycotting the league, I respect your prerogative, but I don't see it's purpose besides satisfying your own personal qualms or making a show of it to hopefully influence a meager handful of others, at best.

- Roger Goodell

I seriously doubt that our understanding of their purpose was at all considered when they made the decision to walk away from the NFL. In other words, I don't think they give a flying what we think about it.

[CS85]

To those of you who are vehemently outraged to the point of boycotting the league, I respect your prerogative, but I don't see it's purpose besides satisfying your own personal qualms or making a show of it to hopefully influence a meager handful of others, at best.

- Roger Goodell

I seriously doubt that our understanding of their purpose was at all considered when they made the decision to walk away from the NFL.

I can't believe that's the case with every instance. I think for some, their whole intention is to draw attention. Not saying it's in an attention-whore way at all, but for some it absolutely is a "I'm gonna start the movement" thing. It won't work if you simply say I'm Not Watching.

To destroy the NFL, if that's what you want (and as we discussed on BASS), don't tweet @NFL or write the league office letters or emails. Write their advertisers. Tweet Bud Light that you won't drink another beer so long as Goodell is commish. Email Verizon saying you're switching to Sprint unless they drop their association. Money is the only thing that talks in this world. Playing to the crowd on the honor system is a waste of time.

[IceCap]

I don't drink Budweiser and I use a cell phone provider that doest even operate in the country the NFL does business in. The closest Papa John's closed a year ago, so there's that too.

I don't have a list of the NFL's sponsors, but it seems like I was already avoiding the big ones.

When I say I'm done I'm not saying I'm somehow "better" then someone who still watches. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to join me either. I'm well aware I won't make a difference to the NFL's bottom line. I'm not going to try.

I'm just recusing myself from the league because I personally cannot bring myself to support the league. That's the beginning and end of my protest.

[CS85]

I don't drink Budweiser and I use a cell phone provider that doest even operate in the country the NFL does business in. The closest Papa John's closed a year ago, so there's that too.

I don't have a list of the NFL's sponsors, but it seems like I was already avoiding the big ones.

When I say I'm done I'm not saying I'm somehow "better" then someone who still watches. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to join me either. I'm well aware I won't make a difference to the NFL's bottom line. I'm not going to try.

I'm just recusing myself from the league because I personally cannot bring myself to support the league. That's the beginning and end of my protest.

Which I absolutely respect. And I'm not going to attempt to lure anyone in off the ledge, since obviously the NFL is not a morally appropriate institution. It's the sport that I can't deny.

[The_Admiral]

Wisconsin Public Radio with quite an interesting interview about reconciling one's love of football with how terrible the NFL is and how frightening subconcuessive head trauma is. The conclusion seems to be "you can't." You should listen:

http://www.ttbook.org/wpraudio/download/79196/audio_mp3

[kewp80]

I don't drink Budweiser and I use a cell phone provider that doest even operate in the country the NFL does business in. The closest Papa John's closed a year ago, so there's that too.

I don't have a list of the NFL's sponsors, but it seems like I was already avoiding the big ones.

When I say I'm done I'm not saying I'm somehow "better" then someone who still watches. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to join me either. I'm well aware I won't make a difference to the NFL's bottom line. I'm not going to try.

I'm just recusing myself from the league because I personally cannot bring myself to support the league. That's the beginning and end of my protest.

Here ya go : https://www.nflplayers.com/About-us/Group-Licensing/Sponsors/

No more Microsoft? I'm screwed. Also gonna need new razors and deodorant.

EDIT: Also just found this: http://www.sponsorship.com/IEGSR/2014/01/27/NFL-Sponsorship-Revenue-Totals-$1-07-Billion-In-20.aspx

[BBTV]

Well of that list, I only use visa. I use MS at work, but not the specific products that are part of their sponsorship.

[kewp80]

No more dairy. They took out a whole food group

[Germanshepherd]

I don't get all the boycotting of the NFL it's just 2 players and if you dig deep enough you'll find reasons to boycott almost every major sports league.

[TheRicSlick]

On September 14, 2014 at 9:13 PM, Germanshepherd said:

I don't get all the boycotting of the NFL it's just 2 players and if you dig deep enough you'll find reasons to boycott almost every major sports league.

Oh, it's more than 2 players.

[STL FANATIC]

I'm simultaneously part of the problem, and hopefully part of the solution. I can't freaking break my irrational allegiance to my two crappy football teams (Rams & Illini), so I watch their games. But I'm avoiding everything else as best I can, and I'm frequently taking the league and the sport to task.

So I'm a hypocrite. But it is what it is.

Here's something that really annoys me in light of the recent bad light spread on the NFL. What Ray Rice did is awful. What Adrian Peterson did is awful. Same goes for Greg Hardy and probably Ray McDonald. And the way the NFL has handled things has been disgusting.

But probably the worst thing that's come out in the last week is that John Abraham of the Cardinals has left the team and is considering retirement after suffering a concussion because he's been dealing with MEMORY LOSS FOR OVER A YEAR.

The reason I say it's worse than the domestic violence or child endangerment/abuse isn't because those aren't horrifying acts. It's because those have relatively simple solutions, and aren't really a league problem. They don't actually happen at an alarming rate within the league, they just happen, and when they happen, they should be dealt with a hell of a lot stricter. Somehow the NFL has bungled getting to that point, but it doesn't make the ultimate solution any less simple.

But the brain injury situation persists and persists. And their solution has been to stop ignoring it (but still not accept blame for it!), to change the game slightly in a way in which the product isn't as good (but people are brainwashed so they bitch and moan and hand over as much money as ever) and also in which nothing about the brain injury situation actually improves. There is no indication whatsoever that the NFL has any actual intent to solve or improve the brain injury crisis. And that's why I find the Abraham news worse.

Not only do players still continue to suffer the repeated blows that leads to the memory loss, but they're still somehow allowed to get back on the field for some more.

But instead of focusing on that, collective we are outraged over their bungling of handling player discipline, so we're really pissed off while we still watch all the football and we're demanding Roger Goodell is removed so that we can act like all the problems go away when he does.

When in reality that changes next to nothing.

Football is severely flawed, and there's no indication that the leaders of the sport will ever fix it.