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David Richard/AP
Should We Still Like Football?
Sunday's games were a welcome respite for a league that experienced the ugliest week in its 95-year history. But could football push aside the feelings of those questioning their love of the sport? An exciting Week 2 did its best to try
By Peter King
So, should we still like football? I’ve asked myself that a few times over the past week. I think we all have. And what I’ve come to think is this: It’s a personal decision. I can’t tell you to feel better about the gutter the NFL has fallen into, or to spend your money on one more NFL jersey or hat or Red Zone channel. It has to be your decision.
If you’re revolted by Ray Rice cold-cocking his fiancée or Adrian Peterson taking a tree branch to his 4-year-old to discipline the kid or the graphic testimony in the disturbing Greg Hardy trial, and you just can’t watch one more game, don’t. It’s your call. No one can make it for you.
If you think the NFL is so full of greed and Roger Goodell so consumed with the bottom line that human decency is way down the league’s list of priorities, walk away. An ESPN poll said a majority of respondents don’t trust Goodell. If you’re with them, and you can’t enjoy the game because of a commissioner you don’t like, don’t give his league your attention or your money anymore. It’s your call. No one can make it for you.
If you think the NFL is just too dangerous, and you read in The New York Times last week that the league, by its own admission, acknowledged that one in three former players will have some sort of cognitive problem long before an average person in the general population would, stop watching. It’s your call. No one can make it for you.
No one will blame you for walking away. This past week has been the most ceaselessly miserable one I’ve see in my 31 seasons covering the league. I am disturbed for some of those reasons, particularly the greed I see. And this one as well: As I watched the games Sunday in my viewing-room perch at NBC, I noted the brutality of the game. In a 15-minute span in the first quarter of the early games, I saw:
Robert Griffin III’s season is in jeopardy after he dislocated his ankle on Sunday. (Nick Wass/AP)
1:21 p.m. ET: Cincinnati wideout A.J. Green leave Falcons-Bengals with a foot injury. He didn’t return.
1:22 p.m.: Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III leave the game against Jacksonville with a dislocated ankle. Didn’t return.
1:32 p.m.: Knowshon Moreno, Miami’s top back, leave the game at Buffalo with a dislocated elbow. Didn’t return.
1:34 p.m.: Washington wideout DeSean Jackson hurt his shoulder against the Jags. Didn’t return.
As the day went on, some of the best players—Gerald McCoy, Charles Tillman, Vernon Davis, Jamaal Charles, Eric Berry, Vontaze Burfict, Ryan Mathews, Tavon Austin, Eric Decker—couldn’t finish. Last weekend, 55 players left games and didn’t return. I daresay this week’s number might be higher, once all the injury stats are in. Atlanta is on its third left tackle, St. Louis on its third quarterback, Kansas City on its third right tackle. Someone’s got to figure out why there’s an injury epidemic—wimpier off-season work?—and how to stem it.
Maybe I’ll get to the point where that stuff will rankle me enough so that I don’t enjoy the game. And I wondered how I would react Sunday, watching after the relentlessly dark week. I watch the games for the sport and the stories—always have. It didn’t take me long to care again. The Bills, celebrating Jim Kelly and their rebuilt stadium, advanced to 2-0. Hometown underdog Brian Hoyer breathed life into the Browns with two 80-plus-yard drives to enable Cleveland to win. The Jets—the Jets!—went up 18 at Green Bay and lost in one of the strangest ways, even for the Jets. No one could beat Seattle, supposedly. ’Hawks going 19-0! Dynasty, baby! San Diego (on a short week) 30, Seattle (with 10 days of rest) 21. Good drama, good games, some very good stories, all happening Sunday. (And one yelling at the TV—on the Geno Smith-to-Jeremy Kerley touchdown that wasn’t in Green Bay.)
I really liked it again, even when I had so many reservations about the week that just was.
I’ll reserve judgment on Goodell until all the facts are in—though I join the chorus that thinks he has to be held responsible for the chaos in the Rice case. I’ll be troubled by the violence of the game, which may eventually drive me from it. But I can’t demonize all the players. There are 1,696 active players in the league this morning. Peterson, Rice and Hardy are three. It’s abundantly clear that scores of players get in trouble with the law. Too many. But not so many that it exceeds the national average for young men in the average age range of NFL players.
I talked to a few players Sunday night about the week the league had just been through. “There’s a lot of great guys in the league,” said Buffalo running back C.J. Spiller. “Good people. Two or three guys are not going to ruin it for the rest.”
“On Friday,” Hoyer said, “after the Adrian Peterson thing, I said, ‘Can this week get any worse for the NFL?’ But the NFL is made up of a kaleidoscope of people, all very young. Some of them make mistakes. But there are 32 teams, with 53 players on a team. That’s a lot of people. And the vast majority of them are really good guys chasing a dream. The good stories don’t often get told, but there are a lot of them.”
For now, I’m in Hoyer’s camp. I still really like the game, and I can accept the zits on it. I just saw on Twitter overnight that a fantasy football league disbanded because of the mayhem of the past week, and the members gave their fees to charity. That’s cool, and I understand the feeling. But I don’t have the same feeling. Yet.
Goat of the Week
Colin Kaepernick, quarterback, San Francisco.
Two interceptions on consecutive fourth-quarter series, two bad decisions, and that completed the Niners’ swoon in the first regular-season game in Levi’s Stadium history.-----------------------
Other than the sentence bolded above this is the only mention of the Rams in this entire 6-page article - "Did T.J. McDonald block a punt and a field goal Sunday for the Rams in Tampa? I thought so, but then the play-by-play credited the FG block to E.J. Gaines."
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To read the entire article click the link.
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/09/15/monday-morning-qb-nfl-week-2/
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