by Robert Carbery
https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/912000070882557952
I haven’t been into the NFL for a few years now. This year in particular I have been pretty turned off by the sport. And I am far from alone. The league has been experiencing double digit drops in viewership in recent weeks and over much of last year. Sunday Night Football on NBC saw a 10% drop in viewers this weekend compared to the same game over the same weekend last year.
The NFL, a league full of felons and wife-beaters, is in trouble. While we are over $20 trillion in debt, close to war with a rogue nuclear armed regime, and suffering from a tragic opioid crisis we are all busy talking about football players taking a knee for the national anthem. This will surely backfire on the league. And though only about one in eight players were taking a knee over last Sunday’s games, the trend continued with the Dallas Cowboys all taking a knee on Monday night’s game, including owner Jerry Jones.
With Trump inserting himself into the demise of the NFL due to players showing their social activism on the television screen for all to see, the league has responded by doubling down on its decaying culture. Americans do not want the flag disrespected when they are trying to drink some beer and watch some football on the weekend. You can’t turn anywhere these days without someone on TV talking about this or even taking a knee themselves, as X-Files stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny did while on set.
Come on!
The money tells the story on where most of America is on this issue. Just look at how the Steelers’ Alejandro Villanueva jersey sales have skyrocketed since last Sunday when he stood with his hand over his heart outside the tunnel to the field while the rest of his team cowered in the locker room.
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/912475288499621888
The NFL has a real problem here. With over three-fourths of the fans being white and generally well off and more than three-fourths of the players in the league being black, there is a real clash of realities here. Players want to now make a statement against the president who they feel attacked them in some way by saying they should stand up for the anthem and not disrespect their country that has allowed them to become millionaires playing a sport for a living. Of course, as most things do these days, it has now become Trump-related and even more politically charged. When Colin Kaepernick started this whole things last year, to the detriment of his football career it turned out, he at least stood for racial injustice and police brutality. Has anyone been talking about or mentioning any of that lately?
Not really. It’s all just become a stupid spectacle.
So for all of Colin’s faults, he at least had a purpose and wanted to put out a message. It started during Obama’s time in office and erupted around Black Lives Matters’ rise that inflated the number of blacks being shot down by cops. Now it seems that players are just trying to show how serious and enlightened they are. And others are joining in because they don’t want to cause a fuss in the locker room.
NBA players on the Warriors don’t want to visit the White House. An Asian commentator named Robert Lee was removed from a broadcast in the wake of Charlottesville. And NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said recently that he is “proud of our league” for their response to Trump.
What has this country become?
Sure, what Trump said about people taking a knee being sons of bitches essentially was far from uniting this country. But let’s face it. He’s got a majority of the country on his side. The Trump-triggered liberals taking over our sports networks and leagues are not with the rest of America that helped put Trump in the White House. Look, I’m all for standing (or kneeling) for what you believe in, don’t get me wrong, but these players need to do that on their own time. We don’t want to see it. They are being paid quite handsomely to bash each other and suffer from concussions while they move the ball down the field. Leave the politics and virtue signaling at home. You are not being brave in your response to the president. You are being foolish.
Will the NFL be able to survive if they continue this destructive trend? No one wants to think about these issues on Sunday morning. They want to watch some football. The lower ratings will continue and the NFL will accelerate its dip down to irrelevancy if they keep this up.
Believe me.