Because it's just too damn fun to call out hypocrites!
Okay, so this week my beef with the NFL is two fold, and both happen off the field. We'll start with the one that makes the most sense: The Rooney Rule.
The idea of the Rooney Rule is to require teams to interview at least one minority for the position of head coach when they have an opening. Essentially, it's affirmative action. They aren't required to take a minority, but must give them a shot.
I'm not sure if I should get into my whole affirmative action thoughts - I think because I'm feeling trapped as the white male is losing all of the power they once had, and now seem at a somewhat disadvantage. Okay, maybe I said too much already. Just watch Fight Club and Tyler Durden's speech on being the middle children of history. That's the best way I could describe it.
What makes this rule dumb: when coaches have an interim head coach, who has been doing a good job, they choose to hire him, but they are required to still interview a minority. It's a walk through jerk-off motion, and really insulting to the candidate that has to go through the bullshit interview. They know they have no shot. The team knows they have no shot, but they do it anyway to appease Big Brother and make their "public image" look "good" because they are "equal-opportunity".
Where does this make any sense? Is this really a rule?
Just a quick thought - when do we really become equal? Does that ever happen? If we always talk about people in terms of "minorities" "blacks" "middle class", then no one is ever really equal. Something like the Rooney Rule is admitting that everyone is not equal, and requiring the "minorities" to be given an opportunity. And in the instance listed above, an opportunity at a position that they have zero chance of getting, it's make them feel even more like a minority and unequal. We won't be all equal until we stop talking about the differences between one another.
Next topic: I'm not sure what to label this as, but let's call it the NFL turning a blind eye to the whole Brett Favre situation. I'll be totally honest, I don't know everything about it myself, because it's stupid, but it's something that shouldn't be ignored.
Brett Favre is arguably the most talked about athlete in the sport. Mike Vick has been a close second this year, but over the past several years, he's constantly coming up, weather it's the retirement talk or the streak or the injury, etc. It's gotten annoying for everyone, since he clearly has no idea in his head what he's doing, and somehow manages to capture the attention of the entire country.
So whatever, he made these advances towards Jenn Sterger, sent "aggressive" and "visual" text messages to her because she wouldn't "come over" or whatever. The NFL launched an "investigation" which took extremely longer than it should have, and determined there was "inconclusive evidence" so that nothing would happen. They fined Favre $50k for "not cooperating" with the "investigation." Favre makes $50k in 4 1/2 minutes of playing time. A game is 60 minutes long. So in 1/12th of one game in a 16 game season, he's already paid that debt. Good penalty NFL. Good. Penalty.
This week came out new rumors that the Jets fired two of their massage therapists after they complained about "harassing" text messages from Favre. Jets and Favre are obviously claiming there is no validity to this claim, but who really knows? Nothing can be proven, but it's just a claim. To me, it seems too ridiculous to make up on their own, so I totally believe it.
I think in sports in general we turn a blind eye to the power we give these players off the field, where they think they are rock stars and can get anything the want, specifically women. (note, the fact that I make the connection to rock stars shows you how America thinks, and we've just come to terms with it) We don't want to accept it, which is why the Tiger Woods thing was such a big deal, because we never thought it was possible. We made Tiger to be more than he was. He wasn't that private, polished, or any of that jazz, he just seemed so confident we decided he did.
So Favre sends these texts and pictures, and the NFL doesn't want to address it, because it's Brett Favre. He gets away with it. He's supposed to be a role model for everyone, and here he is sending out pictures of his penis. It makes you lose faith in all athletes, similar to the way the truth about steroids made you doubt every player. Every athlete that seems polished like Tiger or Favre probably aren't, probably aren't faithful, and probably think they are God's gift to the world.
I'm not sure I blame them, because of the way we hyper-glorify them. The celebrity lifestyle makes these people think they are a deity. They lose all sense of morals. It's our fault. There are people (girls and guys) who would do anything these people ask. There are still many who couldn't care less. So they treat everyone like they are an object. Yet our society says this isn't acceptable for everyone else, these athletes and celebrities get away with it.
So bringing this back to the NFL, they want to act like they are such a professional league, but when they have these national headline stories about inappropriate action towards women, they act like nothing's happening, and when people question it, it's blown off with such vague terms as "ongoing investigation." Why don't they grow some balls and take a serious hard look at this? Like the way MLB took a very serious probe into their steroids usage. It was a brutal and disheartening truth that we discovered, but it was eye-opening. I'm not saying I want to know who's sending/saying what, but let's try to hold these people accountable in some fashion. This just gets absurd.
(I'm sorry, this post is taking multiple days and consequently broken thoughts)
The other problem: Favre gets away with it, while Ben Rothelisbergr (one day I'll spell his name right) gets a 4 game suspension for alleged claims. Sure, Favre's course never went to trial, but how is it any different really? But they won't suspend Favre 4 games because it would of ended the streak and potentially his career. It's really easy to read through their BS. I'm tired of it. Seriously, if the Eagles were not in contention, I would probably have zero reason to watch any of these playoffs. Who cares? The league is corrupt.
Go Flyers.
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