Has the NFL jumped the shark?

With pitchers and catchers reporting tomorrow for the Yankees and Nationals, all I have to say to Patrick and Jay are two words... THANK YOU!

Now on to some things that the columnists nailed.

1. Thank you for pointing out that the BALCO scandal involved NFL players. To hear the MSM talk, it's all about baseball. That's bullshit. Baseball isn't innocent by a longshot, but football players were involved in this too.

2. The NFL could care less about the majority of its old-timers. John Jurkovic, who now does sports talk radio in Chicago and was a pretty decent player himself, as much said that the week of the Super Bowl. It's like the league wants to turn its back on the history and the players that made it famous.

3. Fantasy has made the NFL into something it wasn't intended to be. I play in fantasy leagues, but now each game has some meaning to it if you're a fantasy player. If you don't play, aside from two or three games a year the matchups tend to be crap.

4. I still think the NBA has the worst image problem, but there's something to be said for the Rae Carruth reference. Good point.

5. If college football could do a true damn playoff system, I think its ratings would dwarf the NFL's on at least the opening weekends.

6. The phrase "No Fun League" is true. When you get the league threatening to shut down church Super Bowl parties, you know you're going too far.

I agree with all of the points brought up. I still enjoy watching the NFL, but my season begins tomorrow.

 

No league deserves a tumble more than the NFL.

But it's nowhere near happening.

 

Where's Columbo?

 

The public doesn't care about players being beaten down and crippled. Jim Otto left parts of himself in operating rooms over two decades. People see that, say, "That's a shame," then, "Hey, what's the line on the Chargers-Raiders' game?"

I think the prevailing view is they knew the risks, they made a lot of money and we have new players to replace them anyway.

It's a cruel world.

 

I didn't play fantasy football last fall for the first time in years and found that my interest in the NFL was FAR, FAR below previous levels. I still watched a little on sunday afternoons and sometimes on sunday or monday night if the matchup was good, but I honestly found it kind of boring.

 

Maybe that's more to reality than your previous perception playing fantasy football.

 

Yep. Toss in a little extreme violence and you have something America will always love.

 

This is a good point. I thought that was terribly reported story, anyway. Nobody bothered to find out what the landscape actually looks like. Rather, everyone focused on a handful of poster boys (not the norm) that the alumni group made available. Why were their pensions lowest? Because they chose to take their pension early, which meant lower monthly payouts. What a surprise! Pensions in the NFL are like pensions anywhere else.

To a great extent, it's the retired players' problem. While other sports unions were sticking together, making sacrifices and taking great risks to get fair pensions, the NFL players somehow couldn't pull themselves together. Now, 30 years later, they come back with their hands out, asking for charity when they should have negotiated it for themselves in the first place.

Meanwhile, it turns out the league hasn't exactly been neglecting its former players. This was Joe Browne's op-ed piece from the NY Times this weekend:

N.F.L. Has Donated

$12.3 Million for Retirees

To the Sports Editor:

Re “In Face of Injuries, N.F.L.’s Leader Doesn’t Flinch,” Feb 4: Selena Roberts wrote that N.F.L. Charities had donated “a pitiful $390,000” to help retired players in need, according to tax documents filed in 2005.

If she had checked further, she would have learned that since 2000, N.F.L. Charities has contributed $12.3 million to the players union’s Player Assistance Trust for retired players and to the N.F.L. Alumni Association’s Dire Need Fund for former players. N.F.L. Charities’ 2005 annual payment of $1.25 million to Player Assistance Trust was made after the close of our 2005 fiscal year.

We made that up in the 2006 fiscal year by donating $2.5 million to the trust. We also gave one-quarter of that season’s player fine money for a total of more than $3 million paid to Player Assistance Trust by the N.F.L. in fiscal 2006, the most recent year of giving.

In all, the N.F.L. pays $61 million a year to retired players in pension and disability payments. We will continue to look for ways to help our former players, especially those with medical needs. Joe Browne

New York

 

This is terrible. Such a reach.

When did the NBA jump the shark? When Jordan retired? The MLB? The day McGwire cried in court? Ping Pong? Tennis? Scrabble? Tetris?

Phrases/words that need to be eliminated:
- jumped the shark
- under the radar
- organic (not in the food sense)
- thrown under the bus

You won't find them on the site.

 

Add in calling it "the MLB" and you've got my vote.