Sunday Football Musing

   This past week the National Football League granted a private workout for Colin Kaepernick.  The Atlanta Falcons opened their world class facility for this workout.  Hue Jackson, the former coach of the Cleveland Browns, was tapped to oversee this workout.  All 32 teams were invited and 25 showed up.  All 32 teams would have seen tape of the workout.  The time was set for 3:00 p.m.

   At 2:30 p.m., Mr. Kaepernick announced he was changing the workout to a new location in the Atlanta area.  The time would now be set for 4 p.m.  The area in question was some 60 miles away.

   After 3 years of whining, consistently, that he wasn't being given a chance, after suing the NFL for collusion and then settling for an undisclosed amount, after signing a multi-million dollar deal with Nike, the NFL gave Mr. Kaepernick what he wanted.  He was getting a chance to show his skills to 25 people from the most elite football organizations in the world.  Unsurprisingly, at least to anyone who has paid attention to the this over-hyped drama queen for the past 3 years, this wasn't enough.  

   Let's talk about all the things Colin was getting:

• His agent was allowed to suggest what questions should be asked after the on field workout.  
• He was allowed to bring his own receivers to the workout.
• He knew ahead of time exactly what drills and skills would be used during the workout.
• He was allowed to have Nike there to shoot a commercial and use all 32 NFL team names in said commercial.
• His representatives were permitted to be on field with him during the workout.
• He would receive all raw video footage of the workout, which was being shot by the Atlanta Falcons video crew

   That wasn't enough.  He wanted his own crew to film.  Typical NFL combines only have one crew that shoots video.  He wanted full media access to the workout.  He didn't want to sign the standard liability waiver.  

   Let's be honest.  Mr. Kaepernick didn't want a shot at teams seeing his skills.  He wanted a carefully choreographed media event, where inevitably he would have the opportunity to whine just a little bit more.  He'd have the opportunity to cash in on his Nike deal with yet another commercial.  He's had so little face time lately that he was sinking into obscurity, and well, he can't let that happen.  Nike can't let that happen either, since you don't sell shoes off the back of a guy people are no longer talking about.

   If you are sitting out there still believing that somehow Colin has been oppressed, there is honestly nothing I can do to help you.  He made his decisions. He kneeled during the national anthem, wore pig police socks to practice, created a firestorm, and he did all of this while being a mediocre quarterback who was figured out by defenses 2 years previously.  He opted out of his contract with the 49ers and turned down another contract with the Denver Broncos.  If you think this is all because Colin is black, let me clue you in.  Russell Wilson could burn a flag on the field on Sunday and he would still have a job.  So could Lamar Jackson and DeSean Watson.  All 3 of those men are black and the difference is, their controversy would be outweighed by their ability to play football.  Two of those black quarterbacks are in the running for an MVP this season.

   I have no blinders when it comes to the NFL.  They are tired of being told by every armchair imbecile who can't see the forest for the trees, that somehow Colin is being treated unfairly.  So they offered him this opportunity to show off what he can do and see if anyone wants to bite.  I also believe 25 teams sent people to see him, because that too, would put this to rest....finally.  It doesn't matter why it was done, because if Colin can still play at an elite level someone would sign him.  Quarterbacks are dropping left and right in the NFL this season.  But here's the kicker.... Colin has to be good enough to outweigh his locker room and off field antics.  He wasn't that good when he was still signed with a team.  At 32, it's unlikely he is measurably better.  So it's unlikely anyone would sign him to start, and Colin has made perfectly clear he doesn't believe he should be riding the bench.

   It's time to let this go.  While raging against the vast injustice in the United States of America, Colin got rich.... rich on the very same system he rails against.  He kneeled for the anthem of a country he obviously hates, while taking advantage of opportunities that country provides.  Colin should take his "hard-earned" Nike sweatshop money and go be the change he wants to see.  Let us football fans have our game back, because after all, in the end, it is just a game.

The NFL Has A Franchise Tag Problem....

And it's Le'veon Bell's fault.

For two straight seasons, the Pittsburgh Steelers put a franchise tag on the best running back in football. One could argue about Bell being the best, but when he plays with the Steelers:

He averages 128.9 yards per game
He's a premier pass blocker
He's a No. 2 Receiver
And the Steelers are undefeated when he carries the ball 25 times or more.

He's that good.  So, when the Steelers and Bell couldn't negotiate a long term contract acceptable to Bell, the Steelers put a franchise tag on him.  An Exclusive Franchise Tag.  

Le'Veon Bell was drafted in the second round in 2013.  Rookie contracts are 4 years long.  Bell has never played under a contract outside of his rookie contract, as both years that was possible he ended up tagged.  

There are three different types of Franchise Tags in the NFL.

Exclusive: 1 year, player is paid the average of the top 5 salaries at his position or 120% of his previous salary, whichever is higher.  For Bell, that was 14.5 million dollars. Player may not negotiate with with any other team.

Non-Exclusive - same terms as an Exclusive, but the player can negotiate with other teams, the team with the tag can match the offer, and if the player chooses to go to another team, the tagging team gets two compensatory picks.

Transition - Pretty much a Non-Exclusive, but it's the average of the top 10 salaries, and you lose the compensatory picks.

Pittsburgh knew what they had in Le'veon Bell, and the first year he played under that tag.  When negotiations on a long term deal failed the second time, they gave him a second tag, a second exclusive tag.  And then Bell did what no player has dared to do.  He sat.  For the entire season.  He literally gave away 14.5 million dollars to make a point.

Maybe Bell is just greedy.  I don't know.  (Although greed would say he would take his 14.5 mill, and then force them to tag him again.  That third tag?  It's worth the average of the top 5 quarterback salaries...north of 25 million dollars.)  That money eats into the salary cap.  He knew he was going to get to walk at the end of the season if Pittsburgh failed to meet his contract demands.  So greed seems less likely to me. More, it seems, Bell was fighting against the idea that he couldn't negotiate his contract with someone willing to pay him what he felt he deserved.  

Running backs, for the most part, have a short shelf life in the NFL.  They get beat up pretty bad.  These long term deals serve to give them financial security from concussions, torn ligaments and broken bones.  Just look at Todd Gurley.  He has arthritis in his knee, and he got a 20 million dollar signing bonus and 45 million dollars guaranteed.   That contract extension is his bread and butter, even if the Rams end up regretting it. (Note:  he got that extension BEFORE the diagnosis of arthritis in his knee.)

The Exclusive Franchise tag is one of the worst things the NFLPA could have agreed to.  Imagine if you get offered a job somewhere, doing exactly what you are doing now, and making way more money.  And your boss could just rewrite your contract to say "Nope... you can't go.  You're tagged."  They don't have to declare that they plan to do this when they sign you to a contract.  They can just do it. This isn't a non-compete clause.  You sign those when you take a job.  This is just a flat out anvil hanging over the head of every really good player in the NFL.  And since a team can only give one a season, you have no idea when or if it might be you.

Bell open a huge can of worms for the NFL and its owners when he chose to throw away 14.5 million dollars and refused to play football.  No one had done it before.  But since?  Well just ask Seattle's Frank Clark, who is currently refusing to attend camps and play until he gets his long term deal.  Yeah, Seattle tagged him.  And Clark won't be the only playing follow the leader.  Bell proved you can stick it to the man, so to speak.  Others will be all too willing to play that same game until 2020.  

2020 marks the end of the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the players.  The Exclusive Franchise tag will be chopped.  It's not cost effective anymore.  It was a crap move on the part of the NFL owners to even want it.  The NFL makes more money than any other sport.  It's players play less time than any other sport (Tom Brady not included).  The Exclusive Franchise tag takes away their ability to negotiate for the best deal they can get.  Imagine if you had to work that way.

Both the Non-Exclusive and Transition versions could stay put.  They both still allow the player the power to determine his future.  But what Pittsburgh did to Bell?  Well, I would have sat my butt down for the season too.

Hoax-A-Rama (and it's implications)

Four young men who play Lacrosse at a prestigious university are accused of raping an exotic dancer.  They are white, they come from wealthy backgrounds, they are self-entitled male sports stars. They must have done it.  The media completely trashes them.  Fast forward.... the prosecutor in the case is disbarred, and it turns out, they didn't do it.  They didn't even do anything resembling the accusation.  Crickets.

University of Virginia.  An entire frat more or less is accused of holding rape parties.  Big cover story in Rolling Stone Magazine.  Media piles on relentlessly.  Turns out the party in question never took place.  The person accused of rape never existed.  The whole story is a complete and total fabrication.  A independent investigation of Rolling Stone and it's writer come to the conclusion that no semblance of due diligence in reporting was even attempted.  Crickets.

Brett Kavanaugh.  Accused of a violent rape when he was a teenager.  Accuser doesn't remember when, doesn't remember where, can't remember exactly who was there and who wasn't.  Her only supposed witness has no recollection.  No one named has any recollection.  Kavanaugh is pilloried in the press and by certain members of government.  Crickets.

A teenage boy wearing a MAGA hat appears in a 2 minute video with a smirk on his face.  No context is given besides the word of one Native American man.  This man claims this boy and his friends were harassing a group of African American people, yelling "Build the Wall", and that when he (the Native American) went to "diffuse" the situation he was blocked from being allowed to pass.  The media piles on.  Stars and big names pile on.  One of them even says that a school shooting at this boy's high school would be acceptable.  Fast forward... two full hours of video are released by the African American group in question.  It shows the African Americans needlessly harassing the boys.  Calling them names, telling them to go back to Europe, and other things I won't even write here.  The boys, being teenage boys, yell some school cheers and maybe act a little over the top to drown out the hate being directed at them.  The Native American man marches up to the boy in the video and bangs a drum, inches from his face.  A wider angle shows there was plenty of room for this man to walk around the kids and he chose not to.  Boy gets lawyer and lawyer takes on several people in defamation lawsuits.  Crickets.

Jussie Smollett accuses 2 white men in red hats and yelling about this being MAGA country of attacking him.  Kicking him, beating him, throwing a chemical substance on him and putting a rope around his neck.  The also yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him.  Jussie is an actor on the show Empire.  Despite the host of other stories that have turned out to be hoaxes (many of them not listed here), the outrage parade starts again.  Politicians, Hollywood stars, bloggers, news media, jump on this story and perpetuate the idea that this is normal.  That this is now what happens in Donald Trump's America.  Breaking news yesterday... the Chicago Police Department investigates, arrests, and then releases two black men. It is possible that Mr. Smollett paid these two Nigerian Extras on Empire to attack him.  They actually had the red hats and the bottle with bleach.  The PD knows where the rope and hats were purchase.  These aren't white men, they are black men.  They were found via video camera footage.  They know the victim and interacted with him on the set. They are not Donald Trump supporters.  One of them turned over his phone, which may show he was in contact with Mr. Smollett.  Crickets.

Why did I put crickets after every incident?  Because not a single one of these bandwagon jumpers has apologized after spending weeks accusing a person, group of people, or half the country of being the worst kind of people.  Each one of these hoaxes, and many more not listed here, targeted a specific group of people.  Wealthy white privileged male athletes.  Testosterone filled men child fraternity students.  Conservative white judges who just might serve on the Supreme Court.  Young mostly white male catholic students.  White male Donald Trump supporters.  

Almost all of these stories were believed right out of the gate.  Not because there was overwhelming evidence.  In most of these cases there was a severe lack of evidence, or what evidence there was pointed to something far different than the story being told.  Why is it that so many people are willing to believe things that have almost no basis in fact?  

Here is where Amy makes people angry, because I am going to tell you what is the common thread in all of these stories (and once again, the many  more like it that I haven't bothered to rehash).  White men.  Every single one of these stores involves white men.  America has been turned on it's head.  

Sixty years ago, and even less than that, the stories would have been black men, and would have been believed simply because they were black men.  That's racism, by any definition.  So now, let me make you increasingly angry by pointing out the elephant in the room that no one is talking about.  These stories are believed because they involve white men.   In every facet of our life we are told white men are the devil incarnate.  They are the reason for all of society's issues.  It's pushed on us in major media stories, in television shows, in movies, in books.  Nothing comes without a political agenda anymore.  And yes, it's a political agenda, because for the last 10 years, it's everywhere, and it's been a common theme in political campaigns.  There are more racist white men now then there were 60 years ago.

How many times have you been told, or you have told someone yourself, that all white people are racist?  That it's almost a biological process.  White people are born racist.  At least in this country they are. All men are capable of rape.  We need to teach men not to rape.  (I don't want to write forever, but I could take that extrapolation down a rabbit hole with every human being on the planet.)  If you are a white person, and especially a white man, you have a target on your back solely because of your skin color and gender.  

That my friends is the definition of racism and sexism. To believe, in your heart, from a 2 minute video clip, or a story in a magazine, or because some self-righteous prosecutor trying to win re-election tells you so, that this happened because these so-called perpetrators are white men.  It's a white man.  White man are privileged, they have had no major hardships, they think they are better than everyone, so of course, they must have done this awful thing.  That's bias.  That's racism (white) and sexism (men).  It's wrong. It was wrong when it was done to black men, simply because they were black men, and it's wrong to do it white men, simply because they are white men.  Two wrongs don't make a right.  Morality doesn't work on the same principles as math.  

We can never fix the injustices that took place in our history.  You can't.  It's there.  It was bad.  It should be remembered in the hopes that we never repeat those mistakes again.  Instead, a large group of people in this country wish to act as if nothing has been done to move America forward, to progress past the days of slavery and Jim Crow.  You can be absolved or your biological white racism if you just attack white people and white men.  It makes you feel good in your warm gooey places to pile on.  It makes you feel better.  It's wrong.  

God have mercy.... for we know not what we do.... or do we?