Yeah, I’m going to pass on going to Oakland this year. Thanks.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/yeah-im-going-to-pass-on-going-to-oakland-this/
fan
An NFL blogger fans’ take on the CBA circus
The NFL owners and players cancelled their negotiations on a new CBA today, and with a March 3rd expiration of the current CBA looming large, fans are obviously starting to feel a little pessimistic. If we get to March 3rd without a new CBA it’s seems likely that, in the words of Peter King, “football games will be lost”.
I find the whole situation to be pretty disturbing so I’ve avoided commenting on it. Of course negotiations of this nature, when so much money is involved, are always difficult. These entities are on a level of trying to make billions into trillions while most of us are just worrying about thousands.
Frankly what bothers me the most has been the rhetoric coming from the NFL and owners. Orwellian terms like “Enhanced season”. Ironically for me it’s real propaganda that has been coming out of Goodell’s NFL for the past year.
Last summer, when fans would logically ask why negotiations hadn’t already started we were told that they needed the hard deadline of March 3rd to make things get done. Well here we are three weeks from that deadline, and there’s no more progress today than we had last summer. We’ve known for over a year where the two sides stand on the issues.
How do you push for 18 games and still say you’re concerned about the players health? How can you continue to say fans are for the “enhanced season” when there’s clearly a great majority of knowledgeable fans that I see every day who are dead against it? I have yet to see a fan argue for an 18 game season. I really wish the NFL would stop speaking for the fans and let the fans speak for themselves.
I believe the fans are clearly on the players side. At least the fans that are paying attention. Fans who aren’t paying attention see two more opportunities to get drunk and watch football and say “hells yeah”.
The real issue isn’t about the rich owners versus the rich players like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. The real issue is about the average NFL player whose career lasts just a few seasons. It’s about the people who put their well-being in jeopardy every Sunday and will never have a million dollar contract. It’s about being responsible and taking care of the people who put life and limb at risk for our entertainment. That should be priority number one!
What has been apparent for the last couple years since Roger Goodell took over is that his goal as commissioner is to take the NFL to another level. He made the draft a primetime event, they’re want to make a game in London a yearly event. They want to take the NFL brand worldwide, and now it seems like they don’t care if it’s at the expense of the players or the fans.
You can agree or disagree with that philosophy. This is American capitalism, and they have the right to grow their business however they see fit. But such a philosophy is not without risk.
You’re betting that fans will still want to attend regular season football games in mid-January. You’re betting that the rest of the world has the same taste for violent sport that Americans have. You’re betting that the teams that play for the Super Bowl in mid-to-late February won’t just be the teams that won the battle of attrition.
In the age of HD, and a coming age of 3-D television, and the current difficult economic times that are a reality for many of the fans, I think the NFL is about to leave a lot of us behind.
Given the choice of watching a meaningless regular season game on January 20th with weather in the teens, at a cost of over $100 per ticket, $50 for parking and whatever else you have to pay for beer, or watching the game in HD or even 3D, from the comfort of my own couch, with my car freely parked in my driveway and a store bough twelve pack for $10, well… the choice is pretty clear.
We can only hope that negotiations resume quickly, because a lockout is not in anyone’s interest. But the old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” remains true and the NFL seems hell bent on fixing what isn’t broken.
The only thing that truly appears broken to me is how the NFL treats their players and fans, on whose backs the NFL dynasty was built.
It’s Okay For Fans to Say “We”
There’s a debate that arises from time to time on any popular team message board, and that is whether or not it’s okay for fans to say “we” when referring to their team.
“We really need let Carson Palmer go, he’s on his last legs,” as opposed to “the Bengals have to get rid of Palmer because he sucks now and I am sick of watching him suck.”
Can we the fans really say “We?”
We’re not on the team. We don’t score touchdowns. We don’t block anybody. The only thing we’re kicking are empty beer cans at the tailgate.
Plus, who is so bold to qualify his or her comments as the voice of the team’s collective fan nation?
“We” bothers a lot of people. It’s too pretentious, and they don’t like being told what their opinions are. And they don’t like other fans speaking for everyone. Personally I can’t stand when Bill Simmons talks about the Patriots like he speaks for me or any other Pats fan who hadn’t thrown in the towel after week two.
Those of us who use “we” feel sufficient and confident in our loyalty and almost part of the team. It comes naturally to us.
So, should it be okay for fans to say “we?”
I believe that the debate is solved with a simple look at college sports.
If you were talking about your college’s football team, and you went to that college, or at the very least had a parent or sibling go there, it’s pretty acceptable to say “we”.
Nobody’s going down to ‘Bama to tell Crimson Tide Brandi, a sophomore communications Theta Beta, that she didn’t win the national championship last January, the varsity football team did.
Brandi won the national championship that night, along with every other Alabama player, alumni, and fan.
There might not be a New England Patriots University. But if there was, myself and many like me would all be filling out applications tomorrow.
Fans and players are both part of something bigger than the action on the field, in the locker rooms, weight rooms, and meeting rooms.
We all want the team to win. And the team’s fortune on the field effects us all.
The way a loss on Sunday can ruin Monday, Tuesday, and sometimes Wednesday. Or the way I’m still on a high after beating the Ravens last weekend.
The players feel the exact same way.
I can assure everyone that I was just as depressed as Rodney Harrison when Tom Brady went down in week one in 2008. And though I might not have been quite as happy as Tedy Bruschi when he won his Super Bowls, I was pretty damn close.
We might not put on a uniform. We might not risk life and limb for the glory of the gridiron, and probably none of us are driving a Bentley.
But, we are there for every moment, the wins and the losses, the highs and the lows, as the good and the bad transpire on the field before us.
That is what unites fans and players into one nation, united under one flag, all sharing in the joy of victory and the sorrow of defeat.
That is the soul of sports and that is why it is okay to say “we.”