Free Republic

Doug TenNapel (creator of Earthworm Jim) talks about the Superbowl, ratings, Tom Brady's witchcraft, the encroaching wokeness and God's joy... in Exile! (Check him out - he's got some good stuff)

Former NFL star and freshman Utah GOP Rep. Burgess Owens says the NFL has gotten too political and he will continue to boycott the National Football League until Commissioner Roger Goodell is fired. Owens played for the New York Jets in the 1970's and helped bring the Los Angeles Raiders to their championship Super Bowl win in 1984. Owens, who now represents Utah's fourth Congressional district, has since become a sharp critic of the modern-day NFL. He told "Just the News AM" on Monday that Goodell is taking away the elements of sports that united fans and instead making the...

The NFL may be beginning to show signs of a ratings rebound for its daytime windows, however, primetime is still in the midst of a massive decline. The Week 7 edition of Sunday Night Football featured the Seahawks and the Cardinals, an exciting contest between two of the most exciting teams in the league. Though, the contest only averaged a 7.9 rating and 14.31 million viewers. That figure represents a 35 percent decline from last year’s Week 7 matchup between the Cowboys and the Eagles(12.2), and a 33 percent decline in viewership (21.45 million).

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell signaled last week that a change in policy regarding standing for the national anthem would be approved by team owners at the annual fall meeting next week.But the players and their allies in the media pushed back -- hard. Now it appears that Goodell and the players union will codify a policy that will allow kneeling or any other protest during the playing of the anthem. And the league will justify it by using the NFL brand as a "platform to both raise awareness and make progress on issues of social justice and equality in...

Fresh off his mid-season meetings with NFL owners and players in New York, Roger Goodell told the assembled press that they had talked and talked and talked about “social justice” stuff and the national anthem and decided that….wait for it….NOTHING WILL CHANGE. Goodell said that while he and the owners would “prefer” all players to stand for the national anthem and honor the country that has made them all so fabulously wealthy, he and his feckless group of owners will make no rules changes to require them to do so. Thus, the NFL will continue to fine players who don’t...

Y.A. Tittle died last week. A Hall of Fame quarterback for the New York Giants, he is best known for the taking a knee on a football field. Actually, it was two knees. In September 1964, the Giants were facing the Pittsburgh Steelers at old Pitt Stadium. Tittle was 38 years old and at the tail end of a 17-year professional career. He had led his team to three straight NFL Championship Games, in ’61, ’62, and ’63, but did not win. In the game against the Steelers, he dropped back into his own end zone to throw a pass....

Executives from Papa John's, the official pizza company of the NFL, expressed disappointment on a conference call Wednesday about the league's ongoing player protests during the national anthem. "The NFL has hurt us," company founder and CEO John Schnatter said. "We are disappointed the NFL and its leadership did not resolve this." Executives said the company has pulled much of its NFL television advertising and that the NFL has responded by giving the company additional future spots. "Leadership starts at the top and this is an example of poor leadership," Schnatter said, noting he thought the issue had been "nipped...

The six owners who comprise the NFL’s Compensation Committee were stunned to hear what Jerry Jones said on a Nov. 2 conference call, when the committee was trying to iron out some final details of commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract extension.

Contract negotiations are always dicey when business is not going well. After all, what does a business leader have the right to ask for, when he’s essentially failing at his job? Well, if you’re NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the answer to that question is, a lot. An anonymous NFL owner familiar with Goodell’s contract negotiations told ESPN, that Goodell has asked owners for $50 million per year, lifetime health insurance for his family, and use of a private jet, for life. If you’re asking yourself whether it’s normal for contract proposals to become public knowledge during a negotiation? The answer...

Be honest, you’ve thought it for a long time: The owners of teams in the National Football League are, as a collective group, not very bright. The ham-handed way they and their mouthpiece, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, have handled the ongoing player protests of the National Anthem proves that their group decision-making skills rise no higher than those of that herd of cattle out on Farm Road 888. It’s not that they lack intelligence – they are, as individuals, mostly highly intelligent people. Yes, some – like the Luries, the Maras, the Irsays, the Halases and the Krafts – are...

Last week, the NFL sent a letter to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones accusing hims of "conduct detrimental to the league" after Jones threatened to sue the other owners if they approved commissioner Roger Goodell's new contract. It was the latest escalation between the league and Jones, a schism that appears to have origins in Goodell's decision to suspend Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games. But on Tuesday, Jones abruptly dropped the idea of a lawsuit. According to a letter from Jones to Falcons owner and chair of the compensation committee Arthur Blank obtained by the New York...

A few weekends ago, at a seersucker-in-November southern horse-racing event I attended with some lovely and friendly people who will nevertheless be the first ones taken out when the revolution comes, a family friend, an older white man, asked me what I, the one sportswriter he knew, thought of the kneeling NFL players. I told him that while I stand for the anthem myself, I supported the players’ right to express themselves politically and encouraged him to worry less about the kneeling and more about what the players were trying to say. He snorted and said he was done with...

As Roger Goodell attempts these next few days to not only save his job but ask for a raise and luxurious perks amid NFL ratings that are plummeting even further into the abyss, undoubtedly many football fans across the country are wondering if our recent national trend towards the hyper-politicization of everything is here to stay.When Colin Kaepernick began kneeling last summer during the national anthem during football games, claiming that he was doing it to protest what he believed was the oppression of people of color, it caused a sharply divisive uproar across the country that has now snowballed...

President Donald Trump continued his complaints about the NFL and the players that protest during the national anthem, claiming that Americans are fed up with the protests, calling the NFL "weak and out of control." Players have protested since the beginning of the season, whether it was in response to police brutality or racial injustice and even Trump, who called the players "s*** of b******," which led to a league–wide protest during Week 3.

The Commissioner finally has a new contract. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the NFL’s Compensation Committee has informed all owners that a new contract for Commissioner Roger Goodell has been executed.

In trying to avoid a national anthem controversy, the NFL has sparked a national anthem controversy. The league is under fire again for rejecting a Super Bowl advertisement from a veterans group that urged people to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The league invited American Veterans (AMVETS) to place a one-page ad for the Super Bowl LII program, and the completed submission included an American flag alongside the words, “#PleaseStand.” The ad will not run, which now has AMVETS crying censorship. “Freedom of speech works both ways,” AMVETS national commander Marion Polk wrote in a letter to commissioner Roger Goodell...

With the support of many N.F.L. owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell is prepared to escalate his public feud with Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys and long one of the most influential people in the league, by ordering him to pay millions of dollars for his efforts to derail negotiations to renew Goodell’s contract and for his outspoken defense of a star player who was suspended, according to five league officials with direct knowledge of the situation. The punishment will be issued in the coming weeks by Goodell, who will declare that Jones’s actions were detrimental to the league,...

The policy adopted today was approved in concert with the NFL’s ongoing commitment to local communities and our country — one that is extraordinary in its scope, resources, and alignment with our players. We are dedicated to continuing our collaboration with players to advance the goals of justice and fairness in all corners of our society. The efforts by many of our players sparked awareness and action around issues of social justice that must be addressed. The platform that we have created together is certainly unique in professional sports and quite likely in American business. We are honored to work...

This Colin Kaepernick workout situation has been haphazard and it's hard to know exactly what to make from it. Beyond that, where did it come from? Dan Patrick has a source who believes Jay-Z was behind the decision for the NFL to grant him this workout: Patrick said: "According to my source, Jay-Z said that he took a reputational bullet for the Commissioner when they had that press conference [with] his new role in the NFL. Social agenda. Social injustice. He was gonna help with the entertainment for halftime. All of this. My source said that Jay-Z was pressuring the...

An unprecedented week in the NFL culminated in a landscape-shifting 24 hours that appear to have dramatically changed the league's stance on player protests. Things are happening quickly, and you surely have questions. Is kneeling during the national anthem OK now? Does Colin Kaepernick have a chance to get back in? What role do politics play in all of this? Let's try and bring it all together. In a video message released Friday night, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell responded to a video released Thursday night by a collection of NFL stars including Michael Thomas, Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. Goodell's...