Amen. I refuse to purchase DirectTV just for this even though I would have loved to watch Steelers game (hello, fellow fan) myself. I made do. NFL is behind the times on this.
The company's main customers are farmers and ranchers in rural, more conservative areas. What the heck were they thinking in the first place with this virtue-signaling nonsense?
The NFL completely bungled this for more than a decade and screwed it up by choosing YouTube. Forcing fans to subscribe to DirectTV to get the Ticket was bad enough. But when they finally went to a streamer, they rejected great ideas like fans being able to select specific teams to get out-of-market games for. Guaranteed, that would have increased subscribers and boosted overall revenue. FU Goodell and greedy owners. Choke on it.
This is the product of decades of identity politics and victim-making of a certain population. I might have thought at one point that this was an unintended consequence of liberalism. However, now I’m thinking creating monsters like this to terrorize Americans was the intended outcome.
My thesis is that it’s a combination of both. Clearly this guy had a lot of issues going into college but he, to his credit, managed to quash much of that during his glory years in Pittsburgh. But eventually whether by too many hits or just his nature, his true self emerged. And here we are.
I’m a Steelers fan. It is sad what happened to this guy who came into the league as a humble, hard-working sixth-round pick who earned his way up the starting lineup and to fame and fortune. He came from the ‘hood in the Miami area and was such a rabble rouser, he was essentially exiled to Central Michigan University instead of University of Miami or Florida State where he could have easily played. His early years in Pittsburgh made it appear that he truly matured and turned his life around for the better. Then he started to go bats*** and forced a trade to the Raiders, who shipped him off before he ever played a down for them. He bounced around a lot after that though he won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, playing with Tom Brady.
First round hall of famer? Doubtful. He certainly would have been if he just played the remainder of his career without the shenanigans. He may get there eventually; he has the stats for it. He may be waiting a while though.