As this year’s Superbowl nears, Wright Thompson writes on the legacy of the great Joe Montana, his rivalries with Steve Young and Tom Brady, and the sorrows of retirement.

Walmart once paid Joe Montana, John Elway, Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas to do an event. The four quarterbacks went out to dinner afterward. They laughed and told stories and drank expensive wine. Then the check came. The late, great Unitas loved to tell this story. Montana grinned and announced that whichever guy had the fewest rings would have to pay the bill. Joe had four, including one over Marino and one over Elway. Elway had two. Unitas said he only had one Super Bowl ring but had of course won three NFL titles before the Super Bowl existed.

Marino cursed and picked up the check.

RTWT

There is a Lithuanian language epithet (approximate spelling) šventobezdi (š is pronounced as “sh”) which I often heard as a boy applied by adults I knew to the excessively sanctimonious type of person accusing him of flatulating holiness.

Today’s PMC (Professional Managerial Class) Community of Fashion is stacked to the rafters with šventobezdys (plural — švento means “holy” — bezdi is self-explanatory).

There was a simply dreadful referee call in Monday last’s Chiefs-Raiders game. During a third-and-eight play with 1:13 left in the first half, Raiders quarterback Derek Carr was sacked by Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones for a loss of six yards. While Jones was taking Carr to the ground, he stripped away the football and his momentum carried him to land on top of Carr. Referee Carl Cheffers called it “Roughing the Passer,” giving the Raiders back the ball and a first down.

Football fans were justifiably outraged, and former great Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman commentating on the game, in natural frustration at the sissification of the game, called aloud for the NFL Competition Committee “to take the dresses off.”

Me, oh my! What he said! All the fruits and nuts belonging to the self-appointed Committee to Assure Politically Correct American Speech and Expression pounced on Aikman like the proverbially duck on a Junebug.

Aikman’s “toxic masculinity” was reliably attributed by his holier-than-thou betters to previous brain injury and declared to be the kind of WrongSpeech that must be punished.

Troy Aikman really needs to find a non-misogynistic way to critique the call besides “take the dresses off”.

And I say this as someone who heard this misogyny normalized by coaches as a kid & even participated myself. Way past time to end such sports talkpic.twitter.com/lHVhv6WdEv

— ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) October 11, 2022

Sports Illustrated polluted the air with considerable holiness.

I bet Kaepernick failed. From Steve Sailer:

When I was young, Sports Illustrated would run literary essays about marlin fishing with gentleman adventurers, but now they just run nine-part series on the NFL draft prospects of Baker Mayfield, the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback from Oklahoma.

At some point during the NFL combine, between the MRIs and the 15-minute team interviews and the early-morning drug tests, almost every prospect takes a little-known test known as the AIQ, or Athletic Intelligence Quotient. Dr. Scott Goldman and Dr. Jim Bowman have spent the last 15 years developing the exam, administered on a touchscreen and intended to improve upon the methodology of the Wonderlic test, the longtime benchmark for intelligence testing at the combine still in use today.

You’ve probably never heard of the AIQ, and that’s by design; two teams are under contract with Bowman and Goldman’s company—Athletic Intelligence Measures—and purchase the rookie data in full. (The company does not disclose the names of its clients.) About a half dozen additional teams each year buy portions of the data (typically, the test scores for the Top 100 prospects on their boards). The company has administered more than 4,000 tests across each of the major American sports leagues, and started administering the test at the combine in 2012.

“Years ago, we discovered the Wonderlic was the only test that was used to measure intelligence at the combine, and that was based off a theory from 1934,” Goldman says. “It’s language-dependent, and it has socioeconomic and cultural biases. So we spent years looking at all the forms of intelligence and cognitive abilities that impact unsolvable puzzles.”

They debuted the test with the NFL in 2012, testing on a limited basis at the combine, and for the last two years they’ve tested each prospect invited to the combine. Now that they’ve tested thousands of future pros, they’re beginning to see results.

“I’m proud of this,” Goldman says. “We’ve found a statistically-significant correlation between our test and on-field performance, and this is the first test I’m aware of that has found that in the NFL. Players with a high AIQ tend to get on the field sooner and stay on the field longer.” …

Goldman declined to confirm the performance of specific players, but did acknowledge a QB prospect this year scored in the Top 100 on the AIQ all-time—out of more than 4,000 tests—and is the second-highest scoring quarterback out of 63 who have taken the test since 2012. Two league sources, who asked for anonymity to discuss the testing results of a prospect, confirmed it was Mayfield.

Kozack has had it with his favorite team.

Mark Murphy, President and CEO, Green Bay Packers
Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner

I am writing to you as a lifelong fan of the Green Bay Packers. I have been a Packer fan since the mid-1960s despite having been born and raised in Chicago. While in grammar school, our library had Sports Illustrated, and reading the articles about the Packers I fell in love.Lombardi, Nitschke, Starr, Adderley, Hornung, and Kramer became my heroes. I remember exactly what I was doing while listening to the radio broadcast of the Ice Bowl. From the Glory

Lombardi, Nitschke, Starr, Adderley, Hornung, and Kramer became my heroes. I remember exactly what I was doing while listening to the radio broadcast of the Ice Bowl. From the Glory Days, to the travails in the ’70s and ’80s, I followed Brockington, Hadl, Dickey, Lofton, etc., listening to the games on WTMJ radio. In the ’90s with their rebirth, I became an early subscriber to NFL Sunday Ticket, so I could watch them while living in California. I hosted a Super Bowl Party for SB XXXI when the Lombardi Trophy returned to Title Town. …

I was disturbed by the player protests which began with Kaepernick and his parroting of the false BLM narrative. But I could tolerate it as long as it was isolated players. But now, suddenly, it has become the official team position of the Packers. We are a bitterly divided nation. Sports was one of the very few refuges from that. Come game day, it was about the sport and the teams.

But now, politics has been injected onto the field at every game, and apparently, the NFL’s official position is to not only allow but encourage this Social Justice Warrior behavior. The original protests were based on a lie, that large numbers of black men were being shot down by police. A quick look at the facts makes that claim ludicrous. The greatest threat to black men is being shot by other black men. Ignoring that and concentrating on the handful of police shootings is like ignoring your lung cancer and focusing on your acne.

Now, the protests have changed into some amorphous “unity against injustice and oppression,” when in fact they are just a temper tantrum because the President called the players on their protests, forcing them to claim they weren’t disrespecting the symbols of our nation — the flag and anthem — a patent lie considering the statements made by multiple players. Watching Kaepernick wear his “pig socks” and his “Che” shirt was greatly offensive to me as a Ukrainian whose family had to flee Communism, and a veteran of the Cold War.

I don’t care what the players believe or do off the field. But I refuse to be lectured about how unjust and oppressive the United States is while trying to watch a football game. Now, after your meetings, the official position of the league is to inject itself in politics and use the NFL brand and platform for “reform.” If I want a lecture, I can go to a Hollywood movie, watch any TV program, listen to any one of hundreds of “comedians,” or read the New York Times or Time Magazine. I don’t need the aggravation of watching the entire Packers organization, or any other NFL team, essentially give the finger to fans like myself and about half the nation. I’ve got better things to do with my life.

So, I’ve taken down my Packer memorabilia. I’ve removed the stickers and plate holders from my car. I’ve cancelled Sunday Ticket, DirecTV, Sirius radio, and won’t be renewing my Game Pass. No more trips to Lambeau, or any other NFL venue. The collateral damage now includes hotels, airlines, bars, and restaurants. I’ll be several thousand dollars a year richer. The NFL will be that much poorer.

If the Green Bay Packers and the NFL come back to their senses, and get back to football, and stop with the politics and virtue signaling, I’ll be back. If not, then good bye and good riddance.

RTWT

Conservative Treehouse:

NFL Fan Outrage So Severe The League May Never Recover…

While the long-term impact will take time to be quantified, early indicators are the NFL has entirely destroyed itself by allowing the politicization of the sport.

It’s not Steeler Country around here any more. Here’s a video compilation of former NFL fans burning Jerseys.

9:33 video

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Dish Network CEO Says That It’s No Longer Unthinkable to Simply Drop ESPN from Cable Networks
link

[A]nyone with cable is forced to pay ESPN something like $7 per month, almost $100 per year, whether they watch it or not, because ESPN is almost always included in the “base” package, and the ESPN fee is extracted from your wallet as part of the “base package” rate.

Cable companies battle ESPN to keep that fee down, while ESPN fights to get it higher. As ESPN continues to lose viewers (and thus their advertising-side revenue), and as their too-costly broadcast rights cost them more and more, ESPN is going to want — need, really — to jack up that Involuntary Rent Payment that cable subscribers are forced to pay to really high levels.

Cable companies are making noise that no, it’s not unthinkable any longer that we would simply drop you.

If that happened, Katie Bar the Door, because that would destroy ESPN’s business model.

Now the CEO from Dish Network has a dog in this fight. It is in his interest to talk tough about dropping ESPN entirely, because he wants to signal he has leverage in their negotiations for carrying the network automatically/involuntarily.

If subscribers had to choose to pay for ESPN rather than having it forced upon them, well, ESPN’s books would bleed red. I’m not sure they could even survive three years.

William Sullivan, at American Thinker, makes a good effort at dispelling the confusion.

[T]here are the stock defenders of [the NFL players’] actions invoking the First Amendment as an enshrined protection for their actions. Even some unlikelier defenders, such as National Review, have framed this as a free speech issue.

To be perfectly clear, doing so is an exercise in stupidity. The First Amendment provides Americans protection to enact displays of protest, certainly. The question that goes continually and aggravatingly unaddressed is, protection from whom?

It would be wishful thinking, I suppose, to imagine that Americans who support the NFL protesters might take the fifteen or twenty seconds necessary to google and read the First Amendment.

It reads:

Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

“Congress shall make no law.” The framers inscribed a document related to the powers and limitations of the federal government. Therefore, it is only logical to understand that this refers to the federal Congress. The federal Congress shall make no laws to infringe upon these rights.

So where is the federal law that outlaws kneeling during the National Anthem at a pro football game? If there were such a law, it would run afoul of the First Amendment. But there is no such law.

Also, I’m not aloof to the fact that judicial precedent in case law evidences a much broader interpretation of the First Amendment, suggesting that it applies to the state and local governments as well. Even considering that broader scope raises another question: who is rushing to arrest the kneeling sports star for his violation of any such standing law at the state level? No one.

So what has the First Amendment to do with any of this?

Nothing. Not one single thing. Anyone with half a brain and thirty seconds to digest the meaning of the First Amendment should be able to understand that without difficulty.

Now let’s move on and consider what these National Anthem protests actually mean.

The kneelers argue that they do not mean to disrespect the flag, or those who have fought and died for this country, or America as a whole. Of course, their actions certainly disrespect all of those things, and suggesting otherwise should be ridiculous on its face.

So why, exactly, are they kneeling?

Those kneeling assert that there is an epidemic of white police officers who work their beat every night with the explicit intention to murder innocent black people. They are suggesting that there is an epidemic of institutional white racism in this country going unaddressed, and that the only way to draw attention to this, the Black Lives Matter narrative, is to kneel during the National Anthem at pro football games.

There is no convincing evidence that either claim is true, and it is a malicious narrative that has arguably already led to a death toll among police officers being targeted for their presumably widespread racism and brutality.

The left argues that the players’ demonstrations force me to recognize that this narrative exists, as if I’m not forced to recognize the existence of this narrative with the myriad protests and riots infused with this Black Lives Matter-inspired rhetoric and impetus. They imagine that I and millions of other Americans don’t accept this narrative only because it’s not being adequately thrown in our faces.

I, among millions of other Americans, refuse to accept that. I therefore find those kneeling during the National Anthem in order to advance that narrative despicable, entitled babies for whom I have no respect and who are undeserving of my financial support.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/09/can_we_please_stop_pretending_the_nfl.htmlRTWT

It is kind of interesting to note that the Rice video’s release produced another classic Internet lynch mob with the self-appointed defenders of women howling for more punishment, while the victim they are championing pleads for all of it to stop. She and her husband obviously have a lot to lose were he to be permanently banned from football.

For a rational and intelligent approach to this very unfortunate incident, read John Hinderaker:

The person in this story for whom I have the most sympathy is Janay Rice, Ray Rice’s fiancé at the time of the elevator incident, now his wife. Janay has been with Rice for a long time. They dated in high school and have a child. She has expressed regret for her role in the events that led to her husband’s downfall. Some think that is outrageous. Not me: she and her now-husband (likely both drunk) were screaming obscenities at one another as they entered the elevator; Janay took a poke at Ray and spat at him before he slugged her. Does that excuse his knocking her out? Of course not. But it is easy to see why she regrets her role in the incident, too. On Instagram, Janay Rice wrote:

I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I’m mourning the death of my closest friend. But to have to accept the fact that it’s reality is a nightmare in itself. No one knows the pain that the media & unwanted options from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific.

THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!

Some think that Janay Rice is psychologically defective because she has stood up for Ray. Others think she is a gold-digger who will dump him now that he is more or less unemployable. They could be right. I don’t know, I’ve never met the woman. But why not believe her? Is she embarrassed by the videos that have come to light? No doubt. Imagine the worst 30 seconds of your life being published on TMZ. But she has been with Rice since they were teenagers. She knows him a hell of a lot better than you and I do. She got knocked out, and married him anyway. I don’t know; there is a lot of posturing going on here, but my inclination is to be on her side.

Read the whole thing.

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Meanwhile, another of those racist Republicans and conservatives, Ian Tuttle, writing at National Review, notes just how thoroughly this kind of media feeding frenzy violates due process.

[T]he release of the video reopened the case not in a court of law, but in the court of public opinion, where millions of amateur observers have psychoanalyzed, speculated, and nitpicked every grainy second of footage.

There is much to be said about the problem of domestic violence, about the rights and responsibilities of victims of abuse, about the way cases of abuse ought to be handled by the legal system. But Ray and Janay Rice made a point of not offering their case as evidence for any argument in these debates. Against their will, the affair they deemed settled, finished, past, has been commandeered for political points, usurped as evidence, transmuted into a morality tale.

TMZ has no doubt garnered millions of website clicks in the last three days. But the release of the video has not served to correct an error or to right a wrong. It has served only to inflame our voyeuristic inclinations and give us de facto permission to readjudicate a settled matter of law.

We do not suffer the consequences of armchair lawyering. Ray and Janay Rice do. However damnable their decisions, in America private citizens still have the right to live private lives.

Full article.

When I was out running errands yesterday, I heard Rush Limbaugh also sympathizing with the Rices.

Digital Anarchy imagines the Community-Organizer-in-Chief bringing fairness to the NFL.

Hat tip to Scott Drum.