Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

What Is Wrong With the NFL?
Townhall.com ^ | February 3, 2018 | Steve Sherman

Posted on 02/03/2018 7:22:56 AM PST by Kaslin

I love pro-football. From the plains of Iowa, I became a Cowboys fan. Most of my friends like the Packers, Bears, Vikings, or Chiefs, but not me. I loved those Dallas Cowboys. Why? First, Iowa doesn’t have a professional football team and secondly in the late 70s the Cowboys were awesome.

The days of Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett gave way to Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith. As a boy those guys were larger than life…real life sports heroes. I suffered through two-a-days as a seventh grader because football was the greatest game I’d ever seen. I wasn’t too fast and at the time I was way too skinny, but I wore my #12 jersey with pride learning about great victories and sorrowful defeats.

Sports are great that way. They have the ability to put a Democrat and a Republican firmly and passionately on the same team. That special bond between fan and team seemed unbreakable. Until this year.

I didn’t boycott the entire season, but I can count the number of games I watched this year on one hand. That is unheard of for me. The reason was 100 percent because of the players kneeling for the national anthem. It hurt me so deeply that these sports heroes would so callously turn their backs on the greatest country that ever existed. The very country that allowed them to make millions of dollars playing a game. My father-in-law would stand from his wheel chair and remove his cap for the anthem. He took some shrapnel in Korea and old age had won its war on his body, but he stood till the end. And when they handed that triangle folded flag to his wife, we all wept.

That is what the protesters spit on for me when they knelt, and I am still not over it.

The NFL doesn’t seem to have gotten the message. They dig their hole a little deeper with the American public every day. As if the kneeling controversy spinning out of control wasn’t bad enough. They took it another step and banned a veterans’ group from running an ad in the Super Bowl asking people to “Please Stand” for the American flag. Now they’ve banned a digital currency from running a video advertisement because it mocks North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, insinuating that even his best hackers couldn’t hack this new cryptocurrency.

Of all the horrible commercials that have been allowed to run during the Super Bowl, outlawing these two smacks of a political agenda.

The NFL has not gotten the memo that Americans like to stand for the anthem. President Donald J. Trump received a huge applause during the State of the Union when he pointed out a young man, Preston Sharp, who was putting flags on the graves of 40,000 unmarked veterans graves when he said, “Preston’s reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.”  The NFL is doing its part in dividing America by getting involved in a controversy over disrespecting the flag. The flag is a unifying symbol for Americans of all heritage. In the flag, we are all red, white, and blue.

The fact that the NFL rejected not one, but two ads, because of political considerations simply shows their true colors. Rejecting an advertisement from Veterans is outrageous when they merely wanted to ask people to stand for the American flag. Rejecting a video advertisement from a new digital currency because it pokes fun at Kim Jong-Un is a head scratcher. Who doesn’t think Kim Jong-Un is funny? The ad uses humor to make a point and to encourage people to buy their product.

I suspect the NFL would have gladly run a commercial that made fun of President Trump, yet they are selectively infringing on the spirit of the First Amendment to the Constitution when they politically screen ads. If the NFL has proven anything this year, it’s that they don’t care one bit about what their consumers/fans want. The NFL trouble smells like politics and most of us have enough politics in our lives without it taking over our sports too.

If anything, the NFL has done a great job of making me a baseball fan.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: anthem; football; nfl; sports
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last

1 posted on 02/03/2018 7:22:56 AM PST by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The NFL has evolved to become a tribute to large black men with poor self control. What these man-child actors want is what they get. What they want is respect that they have not earned. Oh, their football skills deserve respect, but for the most part, not the man child himself. Bling, ho’s, pot, and fistfights are not enough. They have to throw shade on their benefactors to show it is not about America, sports loving fans with jobs who can afford a ticket, or the owners, that make them famous for playing a game. They want it to be about them.


2 posted on 02/03/2018 7:28:59 AM PST by anton
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

At the same time that the FNFL owners are pissing on our flag and disrespecting those who serve, they have no hesitation to demand our tax dollars to finance BILLION dollar stadiums for their own personal profit.

Let that sink in, people.


3 posted on 02/03/2018 7:29:01 AM PST by Howie66 ("Tone down the tagline please." - Admin Moderator)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

What is wrong with the NFL?

I don’t care. Same for Hollywood. They make their living by making people care about their product enough to spend discretionary funds to pay for it. When the customers stop caring, then you no longer matter.


4 posted on 02/03/2018 7:29:02 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Asking a pro athlete for political advice is like asking a cavalry horse for tactical advice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
Once again, a group of "heroes" proves itself unworthy of the title. Actors, musicians, artists, now athletes ... So many of them have shown themselves to be hollow shells or worse -- degenerates.

To hell with them all.

Far better to look in your own neighborhood, maybe your own family, for your heroes. Or become one yourself.

5 posted on 02/03/2018 7:29:07 AM PST by IronJack (A)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

It’s the same thing that’s wrong with America-too much prosperity for too long. It’s ruinous to human nature.


6 posted on 02/03/2018 7:31:56 AM PST by Spok ("What're you going to believe-me or your own eyes?" -Marx (Groucho))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Fox just paid $600 million for the rights to broadcast 10 Thursday night games next year. 10 games. The NFL is fine. Let that sink in.


7 posted on 02/03/2018 7:32:33 AM PST by TangledUpInBlue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bryanw92

This is why I no longer watch NFL games period!

FACTS

In 2012 the NFL had an issue with Tim Tebow kneeling for each game to pray, they also had an issue with Tebow wearing John 3:16 as part of his eyeblack to avoid glare, and made him take it off.

In 2013 the NFL fined Brandon Marshall for wearing green cleats to raise awareness for people with mental health
disorders.

In 2014 Robert Griffin III (RG3) entered a post-game press conference wearing a shirt that said “Know Jesus Know Peace” but was forced to turn it inside out by an NFL uniform inspector before speaking at the podium.

In 2015 DeAngelo Williams was fined for wearing “Find the Cure” eye black for breast cancer awareness..

In 2015 William Gay was fined for wearing purple cleats to raise awareness for domestic violence. (Not that the NFL has a domestic violence problem...)

In 2016 the NFL prevented the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a decal on their helmet in honor of 5 Dallas Police officers killed in the line of duty.

In 2016 the NFL threatened to fine players who wanted to wear cleats to commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

So tell me again how the NFL supports free speech and expression, all of a sudden...

It seems quite clear based on these facts that the NFL has taken a position against any action by NFL players demonstrating RESPECT for any issue: For God, social causes such as mental health, cancer, domestic violence, for cops killed arbitrarily for being cops, for the Memory of 9/11..

But, they will allow demonstrations of DISRESPECT for our National Flag, our National Anthem, for America, and for the American People, if it will help mollify a particular Group and its supporters (such as BLM, and other leftists)

That is who and what the NFL has shown itself to be.


8 posted on 02/03/2018 7:33:20 AM PST by DJ Taylor (Once again our country is at war, and once again the Democrats have sided with our enemy.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Hershel Walker said in Fox news that the NFL paid millions to get players to stand for the National Anthem. No wonder more took part in the disrespect as they wanted big money.


9 posted on 02/03/2018 7:36:04 AM PST by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The NFL has been captured, via the halfwit Goodell, by the SJW Gramscian leftists. The NFL is now at war with its own core demographic.


10 posted on 02/03/2018 7:36:52 AM PST by Paine in the Neck ( Socialism consumes EVERYTHING!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anton

“-————the days of Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett gave way to Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith.”


In other words,class vs. no class.

.


11 posted on 02/03/2018 7:39:17 AM PST by Mears
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Goodell.


12 posted on 02/03/2018 7:40:37 AM PST by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
They H A T E America, traditional Judeo-Christian/American values, the military, law enforcement, white people (especially WHITE males), the traditional nuclear male-female marriage and family. Simply put: the NFL H A T E S its own fan base!

They L O V E and openly promote depraved and perverted lifestyles, progressive feminism, black-racists and their radical, socialist/Communist/anarchist anti-American, anti white people, anti law enforcement, radical Communist "ONLY black lives matter" sjw agenda. They also L O V E lawlessness, thugs, and criminals and totally ignore their crimes just so long as these animals can play football.

13 posted on 02/03/2018 7:41:19 AM PST by Jmouse007 (Lord God Almighty, deliver us from this evil in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I ask the question that I always do (sigh!). WHO EXACTLY is the NFL? Who makes these policy decisions? Is it R Goodell?


14 posted on 02/03/2018 7:41:28 AM PST by I am Richard Brandon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I am taking a pass on Sunday’s Super Bowl by touring the WW II Museum in New Orleans. With travel time to it, seeing it and back to our rented condo in Gulf Shores, I won’t see it. With the national anthem nonsense, I took a pass on watching most of this year’s NFL season.


15 posted on 02/03/2018 7:42:44 AM PST by RicocheT (Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

A Medal of Honor winner from WWII will toss the coin. I still won’t watch.


16 posted on 02/03/2018 7:43:54 AM PST by Terry Mross (Liver spots And blood thinners..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anton

Don’t forget the ultra-PC sports networks who enable their fame and/or notoriety.


17 posted on 02/03/2018 7:44:37 AM PST by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DJ Taylor

>>This is why I no longer watch NFL games period!

>>FACTS

But your long list of offenses with dates shows that they still have a place in your head and you wish they would reform so you can come back.

I just hit a trigger moment where I said that I no longer care if they reform. They are dead to me.


18 posted on 02/03/2018 7:45:26 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Asking a pro athlete for political advice is like asking a cavalry horse for tactical advice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: DJ Taylor

Amen, hear, hear!


19 posted on 02/03/2018 7:45:29 AM PST by Jmouse007 (Lord God Almighty, deliver us from this evil in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: anton

Those overpaid babies listened to Obama who told them they were oppressed.


20 posted on 02/03/2018 7:45:35 AM PST by bgill (CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson