What have we NFL fans learned over the past 72 hours?
We’ve learned that once Golden Tate touches something, he owns it. (Word to Sean Lee.)
http://youtu.be/TXDs1YQO04k
We’ve learned that T.J. Lang ain’t never scared.
We’ve learned, again, that Pete Carroll is indeed Mr. Brightside.
We’ve learned that corporations are in fact people, and the NFL is a cold-blooded pimp.
We’ve accepted to a greater degree something that we already knew: the NFL couldn’t care less what we think, even through all the BS.
We aren’t quite ready to put our money where our mouths and minds are, so in turn we’re not much better than the league we complain about, having figuratively locked out our own conscience.
Fans of the NFL may as well scream their complaints about the NFL replacement officials and their affect on the integrity of the game into an empty room (also known as the internet). Despite every media outlet disapproving of the way this particular lockout is being handled by the league, there is nothing to indicate a change gon’ come.
(CORRECTION: There may actually be some indication of a change coming after all. Word to Sam Cooke.)
The 2012 NFL season is playing out as an imperfect-yet-profitable product that in theory can sustain itself for the entire year, at minimum. Trent Dilfer had it 100 percent right when he said everyone’s “intelligence has been insulted” by the league (and that was before the pathetic explanation of the controversial catch), but his MNF partner and Hall of Famer Steve Young captured events all too perfectly a little over a week ago when he said, “”There is nothing they can do to hurt the demand of the game… So the bottom line is they don’t care. Player safety doesn’t matter in this case. Bring Division III officials? Doesn’t matter. Because in the end you’re still going to watch the game.”
What has changed from the time Young said that a week-and-a-half ago to now?
Aside from more than a few more bad controversial calls by said referees and more smoke being blown in the faces of the fans by Roger Goodell and the NFL owners he represents, absolutely nothing.
YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE. You have been taken by the NFL, and Liam Neeson isn’t coming to rescue you. Ben Affleck isn’t heading a team of CIA operatives under the guise of being a film crew to take you out of this hell hole either. Your situation will change when the people in charge want it to change, and not a moment sooner.
Its a dark, pessmistic outlook toward the immediate future, but it’s the only outlook that is backed by anything factual. The bottom line mentality of the NFL has brought us to the point that the first ever Monday Night Football game to end on a TD pass with the clock showing o:00 is the biggest embarassment in the history of the game.
(CORRECTION: Aside from the whole brain injury/suicide thing, but that’s too icky of a topic to discuss in any detail.)
If there is any solace to be taken, it should be in knowing that while you have to watch this farce, at least its not your job to play inside of the mayhem. There, but for the grace of Steve Sabol, size, speed, and hand-to-eye coordination go all of us.
Rise up! Rise up! get off your knees and turn off the Faux Football. Where are the blood sucking lawyers when we need them? The fans, the players, and the sponsors should be suing the crap out of these Moofas for making us pay premium bucks for putrid products. The football Universe is distorted by the absence of adequate officiating…from Vegas to every Fantasy League each arena assumes that the rules will be applied accurately. I am going into grudge mode…turning off the football…watching baseball and yes heaven forbid talking to the wife and kids….it ain’t like a $9 Billion Dollar industry cannot afford to pay the officials one-third of what a third string tackle makes.