This Is An NFL World I Don’t Want to Live In

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Just so I get this straight: in the NFL’s bathrooms, violence like THIS is going down.

Yet on the field, something we once just called a “good block” is now a penalty?

What good is the NFL’s newest crown jewel stadium – the Niners’ “Big Jeans” – if it has unlimited wi-fi, but pissers which resemble the wild west?

And of course, the video of the beat down which has resulted in two arrests and felony charges, has now been “scrubbed” by YouTube for “offensive and disgusting” content.

Whatever. How is that different from the rest of cable TV these days?

**If anybody has a copy of the video on a different platform than YouTube, do pass it along. I hate to let the censors win, and it’s not a terrible idea to see what you are possibly getting into if you bring your kid to a Niners’ game.**

Meanwhile, back to the Seahawks win over the Redskins. I would certainly HOPE the NFL comes out today or tomorrow and says: “Uhh…. yeah. That’s NOT ‘un-necessary roughness’, they made a mistake.” Because otherwise, I don’t even know what sport I am watching anymore.

What are you supposed to do if the guy you are blocking falls down? Say: “Oh, sorry buddy. Are you oh-kaaayyyy?” Then help him up?

I would normally just chalk this up to the sheer corrupting incompetence of Jeff Triplette and his crew, but at this point you never know. A league that is capable of saying with a straight face they tried to get the Ray Rice video but couldn’t, is certainly capable of instructing its referees to do all they can to staunch the bleeding on the recent run of prime time blowouts.

I didn’t say they did. I just said I believe the NFL’s credibility is so shot, that anything’s possible.

So have I quit watching? No, of course not. But it doesn’t mean someday I won’t. And it doesn’t mean I am watching just as much or more football as before, despite the nonsense. I am pretty sure the opposite is true. I am watching less. And I am only one person. There are others, I am certain, whom are shifting their football consumption away from an NFL product that is become more and more of a farce every week.

In the meantime, I think it is our duty to complain. Its is the only power we have as fans, feeble as it may be. To sit here silently, would be surrender.

 

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Steve Czaban is a 25 year sports radio veteran, who hosts an afternoon drive show in Washington D.C. "Czabe" also writes and edits his own commentaries for www.czabe.com and other on-line and print publications. He can be reached at czabe@yahoo.com.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Amen. I’ve disagreed with your anti-N.F.L. rants of late, which feels now like the equivalent of putting my fingers in my ears and saying “La la la, I can’t hear you.” I don’t want to waste my only day off and my money on Sunday Ticket to watch this over-legislated penalty fest. The “point of emphasis” calls from the suits are killing this game.

  2. Agree. Flags are dropped so late suggesting the dropper waited to decide if the play would be worth corrupting. A blind side block is a penalty? Is it a clip? A block in the back? No, it’s a block where the blocker didn’t give the blocked a heads up that he was about to be decleated. A blocker who goes to the ground with the blocked man is penalized as if a player on the ground never got up an tackled a runner. So, until the whistle blows, you may block a defender below the shoulders, not too hard in the chest, and not below his waist….provided you announce yourself and the defender acknowledges your presence.

    Phantom penalties, away from the action, which derail exceptional athletic plays are so random and expected that the speed and excitement are tempered by first waiting to see if the little yellow FLAG notice on the screen will pop up. Then if no flag, we have to wait until the play is reviewed upstairs as all touchdowns are reviewed. A simple touchdown run into a pile with a referee immediately raising his arms for touchdown and rushing in is as much a part of NFL history as the pistol shot which once signaled the end of the game.

    I don’t even watch my favorite team as much. It’s becoming a dull game of political correctness….you know what, it reminds me of a political campaign. Every misstep is magnified and scrutinized. Every action is so subject to being wrong that we know longer know what’s right.

    NFL has lost its way right when it reached it’s peak of popularity.

  3. I hate what the NFL has become!!
    absolutely hate it.
    I watch games from noon to 10:30 religiously and I see call’s made all day that either I can’t believe they threw a flag or where is the flag? mostly I’m just dumbfounded on what the refs are seeing and why they’re throwing flags. I honestly think to myself after these atrocious call’s the only explanation is the refs are in on a fix.
    in 20 years the players will have flags on there waists.

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