About the author

czabe

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.

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7 Comments

  1. 1

    Jack Briggs

    Czabe, your take on the league going lie first is brilliant. At every opportunity, when the truth would hurt but be correct, they go with the lie. We as fans would have some respect for Roger if he stuck up for the truth. But he doesn’t. Just cut another video of him running in his socks down the hallway.
    Ray Rice, Brady, the fumble. Three big issues that would have gone away quickly had he and the league told the truth. But they don’t. And we as fans suffer.

    Another reason why I love Gary Bettman.

    Reply
  2. 2

    DCL

    Sticking to the truth, keeping it simple, and being transparent ensures that your product is strong, which means you will prosper for the long run. That’s what Rozelle and Tagliabue understood. Once you get away from the truth, and start caring more about the “optics”, and start adding more and more complexity into the situation, your product suffers. People eventually figure it out and stop buying.

    Reply
  3. 3

    Bob

    I officiated for many years. When I went to make the move to college, the politics of it made me ill. As for the call, my last words to my crew before each game were, “see it, see it, call it.” She violated that rule. She never saw the ball. Her best move would have been to simply stop the clock and signal the play dead – then confer with her fellow officials….that’s what they are for. She panicked – which means she has no business doing NFL football. She didn’t want to look bad, so she guessed. The NFL then confirmed the fallacy – lest they have to admit their error in putting her on the field in the first place.

    Reply
  4. 4

    Mark

    Although glad it helped the Skins, that was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in my 50+ years of playing/watching sports.

    Reply
  5. 5

    Pk

    Wait until week 9 when Brady, Ben, Aaron and Joe are on the IR and Sundays are a parade of back-up guys nobody has heard of. Ratings magic I tell ya!

    Reply
  6. 6

    Wendy

    NFL ratings are down and ESPN is hemorrhaging so many viewers that it’s a drag on Disney earnings. Hmm, what do these two have in common? They’ve become modern-day scolds – and to the men leading both, that’s OK. Goodell and Skipper are like CBS president Les Moonves who said of his Tonys broadcast: “the show is a money-loser for CBS, but there are certain things that are more important than making money….part of being a broadcaster is public trust.”

    See? They know better. And everything they do, they do for our own good. Goodell, Skipper and Moonves are men who fervently need to believe they themselves are enlightened, morally correct and not at all old. Their decisions are in tune with everyone else they know in Manhattan. If they’re out of sync with their audiences, it’s the audiences’ fault for being such rubes. Better to lose fans, sacrifice profits and lie than risk being called sexist or bigoted or whatever.

    What Moonves calls “public trust” is a joke. These are vanity projects and morality plays. Lying is OK in service to this greater good.

    Reply
  7. 7

    johnnydomino

    We got a “this league” out of Doug Pedersen in his post game presser today, had to smile for you.

    Reply

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