NFL 2017: Less Than Burfict

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

7 minutes ago, Sour Billy Tipton said:

If by announcers, you mean the media, I completely agree.  ESPN peddles bullshit.  They follow the same blueprint as 24 hour news networks, get a bunch of talking heads on a panel and make them disagree on meaningless subjects in order to convince the audience that these subjects matter.  

No better example than Tim Tebow. 

Don't watch it? Why would you watch it? As you said, it's shit. The only time I ever watch even SportsCenter at this point is when it's on directly after a game I've been watching on ESPN ends, and I'm probably to busy screwing around on the computer to bother changing the channel on the TV.

[Sour Billy Tipton]

6 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Don't watch it? Why would you watch it? As you said, it's shit. The only time I ever watch even SportsCenter at this point is when it's on directly after a game I've been watching on ESPN ends, and I'm probably to busy screwing around on the computer to bother changing the channel on the TV.

Sometimes I would watch to hear the pure stupidity coming out of Skip Bayless's mouth.  I mainly watch for MNF, and NBA games.  I may watch Stephen A Smith give his opinion on NBA stories, because I've respected his opinion on basketball since he was a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  But when the bullshit starts coming out of his mouth, I quickly turn it off.  

And speaking of the NBA, can we all agree that TNT knows how to produce quality entertainment each week for the NBA?  I mean they have been MILES ahead of ESPN for years!  That's why ESPN had to go out and spend a ton of $ on Adrian Wojnarowski.  

Kenny, Charles, Shaq, and Ernie provide hours of great television each year.  And when they discuss political issues, they keep it at a minimum, and it's from the heart.  Not a feigned P.R. story, or part of an agenda to grab ratings.

[Cas Stark]

26 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

But how often does that truly intrude on the game? Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention, but let's take the breast cancer thing for a sec. It's a brief blurb at the start of the game, and then outside of pink cleats, or a ribbon pinned to a jersey, that's it. How does that take away your enjoyment for the game? (I agree with you in the sense that it doesn't really make any sense to me outside of a blatant PR move, but at the end of the day it's just background noise. It's like a commercial lead-in. Like when the announcers start talking about whatever shitty sit-com is on after the game)

I have many issues with the NFL besides it's politicization, but, to answer your question, I guess I could only watch the 'game' and not any of the pre-game or the half time stuff, but then I'm working to censor the program, and it becomes easier to simply tune out, because if I have to work to actively filter out parts of the program, it's no longer relaxing, I'm working at it.  You might say that politics is the straw that broke the camel's back, and I doubt I am alone in that feeling.  I also just think it's a real shame that one of the few things left that wasn't polarized by politics...now it is, and there is no going back from that, not in this age.  I personally find the pink gear is distracting, dilution of the NFL brand and was a bad idea, although I understand that they wanted to pick up more women fans and breast cancer research is something that would have universal support, but once that door was open.....  

 

 

[IamMe90]

56 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

What's so hard to understand about not wanting politics, or issues, to be part of sports? I don't really want to hear about the NFL's plans on combating domestic violence, or how they're going to lobby for changes to the criminal justice system, or what kneeling does or doesn't mean or why players are or are not kneeling, or which owner had to apologize for which statement, I don't want to know who anyone votes for and I don't even want to hear about breast cancer.  I want to hear about football.  That's relaxing, and neutral, where once upon a time you could enjoy with anyone because there was no politics in it.  

And I don't like commercials that take up maybe a quarter of the game's airtime, and yet they've been there and will always be there. You know how I still enjoy the game? By getting the fuck over it. Jesus christ, bunch of snowflakes in here. 

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

It's not like they're making speeches. Not sure how this can honestly take away from your enjoyment of the game.It's a panned camera shot before the game even starts that lasts what, 2 minutes? And they might focus in on a kneeling player for 5-10 seconds.

Seriously. It's like, 10 fucking seconds of the game. This is some of the most petty shit to have a grievance about that I can conceive of.

[Sour Billy Tipton]

11 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I have many issues with the NFL besides it's politicization, but, to answer your question, I guess I could only watch the 'game' and not any of the pre-game or the half time stuff, but then I'm working to censor the program, and it becomes easier to simply tune out, because if I have to work to actively filter out parts of the program, it's no longer relaxing, I'm working at it.  You might say that politics is the straw that broke the camel's back, and I doubt I am alone in that feeling.  I also just think it's a real shame that one of the few things left that wasn't polarized by politics...now it is, and there is no going back from that, not in this age.  I personally find the pink gear is distracting, dilution of the NFL brand and was a bad idea, although I understand that they wanted to pick up more women fans and breast cancer research is something that would have universal support, but once that door was open.....  

 

 

Well the NFL isn't going to stop drafting and signing players that come from broken homes and have questionable morals while playing in a college program that doesn't promote academics over athletics.  So the money and awareness they raise with their pink products will always help balance their domestic abuse cases.  And when the shit really hits the fan, they can make another ridiculous "No More" P.S.A.  

[IamMe90]

15 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 I personally find the pink gear is distracting, dilution of the NFL brand and was a bad idea, although I understand that they wanted to pick up more women fans and breast cancer research is something that would have universal support, but once that door was open.....  

 

 

Wow. Making an incredibly offhanded, quick appeal at fundraising for breast cancer research is the "door" that won't close for you. Your priorities are... special.

[Sour Billy Tipton]

2 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

And I don't like commercials that take up maybe a quarter of the game's airtime, and yet they've been there and will always be there. You know how I still enjoy the game? By getting the fuck over it. Jesus christ, bunch of snowflakes in here. 

Seriously. It's like, 10 fucking seconds of the game. This is some of the most petty shit to have a grievance about that I can conceive of.

Yeah but, you're in Wisconsin. Your entertainment choices are limited.  

[Kalbear]

If you don't want politics to interfere with your entertainment this almost certainly means your life is so protected by the status quo that you simply don't care about any issues which don't directly impact you. 

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

If you don't want politics to interfere with your entertainment this almost certainly means your life is so protected by the status quo that you simply don't care about any issues which don't directly impact you. 

That's B.S.  There was no politics in football until very recently, the last 5? years or so.  

 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

That's B.S.  There was no politics in football until very recently, the last 5? years or so.  

 

That's incredibly wrong. What do you think strikes were? What do you think people getting fined or suspended for messages on their clothes were? What do you think the suicides were? What do you think the college protests were about? 

What this says is that you don't want protests to actually inconvenience you or even make you vaguely aware of an issue. Which kind of defeats the purpose of a protest. 

[Cas Stark]

10 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

Wow. Making an incredibly offhanded, quick appeal at fundraising for breast cancer research is the "door" that won't close for you. Your priorities are... special.

Whatever. Once they partnered with one organization to the point of players being mandated to wear the special gear, yes the DOOR IS OPEN for other partnerships.  Why just breast cancer?  Why not heart disease?  Why not diabetes?  Why not AIDS?  And then, all of a sudden your branding is muddled to shit

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That's incredibly wrong. What do you think strikes were? What do you think people getting fined or suspended for messages on their clothes were? What do you think the suicides were? What do you think the college protests were about? 

What this says is that you don't want protests to actually inconvenience you or even make you vaguely aware of an issue. Which kind of defeats the purpose of a protest. 

Um, the strikes were about money.  Not politics, LMAO.

People got fined/suspended for not conforming to the NFL's rules, also not politics.  Although presumably those rules will be modified now.

I have no idea how or why you think suicides are political.

There are numerous news channels, web sites, newspapers, community sites and events that are fully dedicated to issues and politics.  The NFL used to be a respite from that.  That was a good thing.  I get that you think bringing politics into football is good, because you agree with the protest, but you're wrong.  It was much better and more beneficial when sports were neutral territory that everyone could enjoy together regardless of their stances on any issues or what charities they contributed to.

But we can agree to disagree, I'm out.

 

[Sour Billy Tipton]

7 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

Wow. Making an incredibly offhanded, quick appeal at fundraising for breast cancer research is the "door" that won't close for you. Your priorities are... special.

No, it's the fact that it's a disingenuous PR campaign by the NFL.  You can't visualize a board room full of NFL executives theorizing on how to increase female viewership, while creating a tax write-off?   

[Kalbear]

The big reason that you think it's more political now is because this is the first time in a long time that the US government has specifically stepped in to talk about it. 

But striking (and the legality of it), suicides based on CTE and covering it up, being fined for putting messages on your clothes of a political nature, all the stuff around Ray Rice and Joe Pa - it's all political. The outrage over janet jacksons nipple was too. It certainly has nothing to do with the game. 

[Joe Pesci]

So did anyone think that it's slightly possible that McNair meant to use the "inmates running the asylum" line and just butchered the shit out of it by saying prison instead? I get that he's an old, rich white guy so it's easy to just assume he meant to use prison, but maybe, just maybe, he really just fucked it up? Would the outcry be what it is if he said asylum? I wonder if this incident ends up forcing him to sell the team like what happened with the Clippers, though that was way worse than this.

Also, Bills trade Marcell Dareus to the Jags for a 6th rounder.

[Sour Billy Tipton]

4 minutes ago, Joe Pesci said:

So did anyone think that it's slightly possible that McNair meant to use the "inmates running the asylum" line and just butchered the shit out of it by saying prison instead? I get that he's an old, rich white guy so it's easy to just assume he meant to use prison, but maybe, just maybe, he really just fucked it up? Would the outcry be what it is if he said asylum? I wonder if this incident ends up forcing him to sell the team like what happened with the Clippers, though that was way worse than this.

Also, Bills trade Marcell Dareus to the Jags for a 6th rounder.

Tough to say.  It's a common saying.  Of course the players and the media will play the race card and the politically correct bullshit will be debated.  

If the players truly cared about racism, they would show some morality and remove the double standard applied to the N-word.  When Riley Cooper said it, he was fined and had to make a public apology.  Where as black players receive a pass every Sunday.  

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

33 minutes ago, Sour Billy Tipton said:

Tough to say.  It's a common saying.  Of course the players and the media will play the race card and the politically correct bullshit will be debated.  

If the players truly cared about racism, they would show some morality and remove the double standard applied to the N-word.  When Riley Cooper said it, he was fined and had to make a public apology.  Where as black players receive a pass every Sunday.  

Dude. That's not how the N-word works. Holy shit. Why would you want to use that word at this point in our history?

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

42 minutes ago, Sour Billy Tipton said:

No, it's the fact that it's a disingenuous PR campaign by the NFL.  You can't visualize a board room full of NFL executives theorizing on how to increase female viewership, while creating a tax write-off?   

That's one point I have to give you in regards to this. I'll have to fish for the article, but I'm pretty sure it was shown a couple of years back that the whole Kommen thing has actually resulted in a really nice profit for the league. Like they've made much more money off of it than they have donated to the cause. Kind of like their bullshit "support the troops" campaign that they tried to play off as a PSA, but they were actually charging the armed services for. 

[Joe Pesci]

17 minutes ago, Sour Billy Tipton said:

If the players truly cared about racism, they would show some morality and remove the double standard applied to the N-word.  When Riley Cooper said it, he was fined and had to make a public apology.  Where as black players receive a pass every Sunday.  

This is fucking ponderous.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

45 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The big reason that you think it's more political now is because this is the first time in a long time that the US government has specifically stepped in to talk about it. 

SO MUCH THIS. Honestly, I think this story had more or less played itself out (outside of a few of us talking about the blackballing of Kaep) before Trump decided to dump gasoline all over it. How many players were still kneeling before he popped off? Like 4 or 5 maybe?