Posts Tagged ‘NFL’

Patriotism

Monday, April 27th, 2020

by B. Austin

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So…interesting thing I observed:

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The New England Patriots took very talented Kicker Justin Rohrwasser (Marshall University) in the 5th round of the 2020 NFL Draft. As is his right, he has expressed himself via tattoo with the markings of a neoconservative, right-wing, militia group co-founded by the late Michael Brian Vanderboegh, called The 3 Percenters (referring back to the three percent of people who took up arms against the British during the American Revolution).

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His tattoo is prevalent on his left arm, I believe. And now…he is being pressured to cover it up or remove it. This is SOOOOOOO wrong to me. He chose to tattoo this on his body and express himself. Why do we force people to hide who and what they are? We create a place for dishonesty, disingenuousness, and ambiguity to fester. People can hide in plain sight and not have to own what they claim to stand for. A HUGE part of the history and legacy of this nation is what these neoconservative, right-wing, white organizations stand for and believe in. It makes us uncomfortable to see and know this truth. It is unhealthy for us to force it “underground”. Allow this young man the opportunity to keep his tattoos intact. Allow Nick Bosa to continue sharing his thoughts and commentary. Don’t hide who and what you are!

 

B. Austin of War Room Sports

(Shout Out To Kyree, WRS Operation Battle Rap)

Browns/Steelers: A Perspective

Thursday, November 21st, 2019

by Gus Griffin

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myles-garrett-helmet-fight

On August 22, 1965 the hated Los Angeles Dodgers were in San Francisco to play my Giants. As was often the case during this era, these were the two best teams in the National League. At that time, there was no wild card or even division winners to qualify for the playoffs. In fact, there were no playoffs. A team had to finish first in the league to advance to the World Series. It is against this backdrop and within the context of the heated rivalry between the two teams when it happened. According to the great Giants Hall of Fame pitcher, Juan Marichal, the Dodgers catcher John Roseboro was throwing close to his head when returning pitches, while Marichal was at bat.

JMHis reaction: he hit Roseboro in the head with his bat and thus what many consider the ugliest brawl in baseball history was ignited!

Marichal was suspended for 8 games, which in that era, meant he would miss 2 starts. My Giants would win 95 games that year, largely on the power of Marichal’s 22 wins and a league leading 10 complete game shutouts, and Willie May’s league-leading 52 homers and 2nd MVP season. And yet, a team with 6 future Hall of Famers would finish 2 games behind the Dodgers, in second place. The Dodgers would go on to win the World Series.

Juan Marichal was arguably the most stylish pitcher of all time. His elegant high-leg kick, reminiscent of a matador, and pinpoint control was legendary. He, not Bob Gibson and not Sandy Koufax, won the most games in baseball during the 1960s. I am a die-hard Giants fan and consider Marichal to be the most underappreciated Hall of Fame pitcher.

And yet he was dead wrong!

On June 28, 1997, Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson had a rematch for the heavyweight championship of the world. Less than a year earlier, in the first match, Holyfield upset Tyson, whom manyMT considered to be “the baddest man on the planet”. Holyfield also had a boxing-wide reputation for using head butts as a deliberate tactic. Intentional or not, he certainly used this against the shorter Tyson in the rematch.

Most of you know how Tyson reacted: he bit Holyfield’s ear to the point of drawing blood.

Tyson was banned from boxing for 15 months and was never the same as a fighter.

I always liked Mike Tyson.

And yet he was dead wrong!

Fast forward to last week, November 14, 2019. Everyone reading this knows by now what happened in the Browns/Steelers game and thus repeating it here is not necessary.  I do believe the backdrop of this “rivalry” can be useful for understanding. I say rivalry in quotations because to call it that over the past 30 years from a competitive standpoint is beyond a stretch. I could not remember the last time that the Browns were actually favored to beat the Steelers, as was the case last week. You literally may have to go back to the Bernie Kosar era, which is 30 years ago. The Browns had lost 8 straight to my Steelers since 2014.

Think of the Browns like the weak kid who has been bullied year after year. He finally goes into the gym to bulk up in the way of getting Odell Beckham Jr, Baker Mayfield, and of course, Myles Garrett.

Think of my Steelers like the bully who has been smacking the Browns around whenever bored and takes their lunch money.

Last week, the Browns had finally had enough. They became the bully, opening a can of whoop-ass on my Steelers.

But apparently that gym work the Brown’s engaged in included something that drove them over the edge.

What is interesting to me are those who are equating the provocation with the retaliation.

In all three of these incidents, one can cite and validate the provocation. Roseboro later in life in his biography admitted to intentionally throwing near Marichal’s head, which surprised no one. That is how the Giants and Dodgers roll.

But all provocation and retaliation is not created equal.

MGOnce Garrett had Steelers QB Mason Rudolph’s helmet, dispatching it and a simple Floyd Mayweather combination would have been sufficient to put the unwise charging QB down.

Garrett chose the nuclear option! As a result, an outstanding player drafted 1st overall in 2017, who had 10 sacks through 10 games, and was going to be a viable Defensive Player of the Year candidate is gone for the season, without pay.

There has been a significant focus on the fact that all of the players suspended from the Browns/Steelers brawl were Black, and Rudolph, who is white, was not suspended.

He too should have been suspended. But some want to point to this as an example to prove that there are racial disparities in how the NFL and America meets out discipline.

To them I say that water is wet and there are so many more relevant samples that have already confirmed this reality.

In addition, this assessment fosters a selective analysis of what actually happened. To say that Rudolph initiated the whole thing is subjective and assumes knowing what Garrett was thinking when he took Rudolph down. No one, including myself, has a clue what Garrett was thinking at any point in the melee. What we do know is that Rudolph escalated the situation beyond what he could handle.

But some are sounding too much like the child on the playground after the fight, declaring, “He started it”.

If one demands proportionate discipline, I’m with you.

If your demand in this situation is for equal discipline, I can only say to you: don’t be that guy.

That guy who defends the road-rager who runs a motorist off the highway in retaliation for getting the middle finger.

Don’t be that guy who defends an occupying military force that levels an entire city because a few teenagers, who actually have a right to be there, threw rocks at the soldiers.

And don’t be that guy who says “when you play with fire you get burned”. Fire does not have the capacity for self-constraint. People do…and the more we rationalize the failure to exercise that constraint, the more we invite others to bypass the capacity altogether.

Having said all of that, I can’t wait until December 1st when the Browns come to Pittsburgh!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Hope for the Hopeless…Even the Jets and Dolphins (9/21/2019)

Thursday, September 26th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

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Dolphins-Jets

(Originally Published on September 21, 2019)

As we enter the 3rd week of the NFL season, there are nine teams that have yet to win a game. As early as it is, this typically brings about what I call “panic analysis”. This is not always a bad thing. In 1993, an 0-2 start is what prompted Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to cave to the holdout of running back Emmitt Smith and sign him to a new deal. The “Boys” would go on to repeat as Super Bowl Champions and win again after the 1995 season. That was the exception. For the most part, it’s basically Chicken Little/the sky is falling type of talk. While it is true that starting 0-2 does not bode well for a team’s playoff hopes, some just get carried away with the doom and gloom. The fact is, if a team can figure out WHY it is winless, there is enough time and football remaining to correct the problems…provided you have a decent amount of talent and GREAT coaching.

Now, of the nine teams, the Dolphins and Jets are in especially dire straits. The Dolphins have lost their first two games by a combined score of 102-10. Both games were at home. Even with the addition of the great LeVeon Bell, the Jets were already offensively challenged. Now they are down to their 3rd QB. Las Vegas sees the futility of these two teams, making them both over 3 touchdown underdogs. It is extremely rare for any NFL team to be a 3 touchdown underdog. In my nearly 40 years of being an investor on some level or another, I cannot recall two teams being this big of underdogs in the same year, let alone the same week.

With all of that said, there are historical examples that provide hope for all 9 teams to include the Dolphins and Jets to make the playoffs.

New Orleans Saints v Pittsburgh Steelers1989 Pittsburgh Steelers: This is the 30th anniversary of one such example. My Steelers had not made the playoff in 5 years and only had 1 winning season during that span. This was the longest drought in the tenure of Hall of Fame head coach Chuck Noll, whose teams won 4 Super Bowls in 6 years in the 1970s. He is still the only head coach of the Super Bowl era to repeat twice. They opened up the 1989 season getting trounced by the Cleveland Browns at home, 51-0. The team then went to Houston to lose to the Oilers 41-10. The spoiled fan base of Steeler Nation was calling for the legendary Noll’s head.

Then he turned it around.

The Steelers would go to Cleveland and beat the same Browns team that had throttled them in the season opener, 17-7. The team finished the season 9-7 and made it to the playoffs, earning another trip to Houston, where the Oilers awaited. Houston had swept the season series from the Steelers. The Steelers would win 26-23 in overtime. It would have been especially satisfying for Noll given that he absolutely detested Oilers coach Jerry Glanville.

The next week the Steelers would go to Denver and come up just short of John Elway and the Broncos, 24-23.

A team that had one of the worst starts in NFL history ended up winning 10 games, to include a road playoff victory. I considered it to be Noll’s single greatest coaching job, which is to say a lot. When the all-time greatest coaches are mentioned, Chuck Noll’s name is omitted too often.

SAN DIEGO, :  Coach Bobby Ross of the San Diego Chargers watches his team play the Arizona Cardinals 09 December in San Diego, California. Ross, who led the Chargers to their first Superbowl last year, is struggling to get his team in the playoffs this year, with a 6-8 record. The Chargers lead, 28-17, in third quarter.                            AFP PHOTO   Vince BUCCI (Photo credit should read Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images)

1992 San Diego Chargers: This team started the season 0-4. It had gotten so bad that head coach Bobby Ross was introduced by the team’s play-by-play announcer as the director of the Laurel and Hardy Show.

Then he turned it around.

The Chargers would go on to win 11 of the final 12 to make it to the playoffs, where they would beat the division rival Chiefs before bowing to Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins in the conference semi-finals. That Chargers team is the only team in NFL history to start a season 0-4 and still make the playoffs. NOTE: My Steelers would have pulled the trick in 2013 but for a bad call between the Chiefs and Chargers, even by the league’s admission.

This is just but one reason (in addition to his college record at both Maryland and Georgia Tech) why I consider Bobby Ross to be the most underappreciated coach in football over the past 50 years.

Of the nine teams, the one with the best chance to turn things around, in my mind, would be the Carolina Panthers. They have the best QB, when healthy, enough proven players on the defensive side from the 2015 conference champions, and are in a relatively speaking weaker division.

Does all of this mean that there is hope even for the Jets and Dolphins?

HELL TO THE NAW!  LMAO

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Why Expanded Replay Will Not Fix NFL Officiating

Sunday, September 8th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

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This year will be the 20th anniversary of the NFL using replay to “get the call right”.

I don’t know anyone old enough to remember officiating before the installation of replay who thinks that it has improved the game. And yet, in no small measure to the tipping point of the Saints getting “jobbed” out of a Super Bowl appearance, the league is not only set to expand replay, but expand it in a way that second guesses the previously sacred “judgement calls”.

Last March, teams voted 31-1 to adopt a rule that will make pass interference reviewable. Based on that margin, the NFL has no idea of the Pandora’s Box it is opening.

The only thing for sure, I believe, is that this will lead to longer games.

The fundamental problem is one of mis-diagnosis. Sure, there are bad calls, and nothing can completely eliminate those. The more specific problems are the “No-calls”, which is what happened in last year’s NFC title game, and almost certainly sent the wrong team to the Super Bowl.

When the diagnosis is wrong, so too will be the treatment.

I’ll go as far as to say that expanded NFL replay will not only fail to improve officiating, but that replay in and of itself has made officiating worst.

To understand my contention, we should leave the realm of football and consider entertainers of another type:

The Flying Wallendas.

As many of you know, the Wallenda family has been walking high wires for years. One of the things that attract many to their exploits is the lack of a safety net. Either they get it right or they could literally die, as was the case with Karl Wallenda in 1978. As tragic as that was, given that there have been seven generations tempting fate, it is beyond remarkable that there haven’t been more fatalities. I attribute that to the conditions and environment in which they perform. Because there is no safety net, there is no place for complacency. Focus is not optional but is a lifesaving necessity.

In the NFL, instant replay has become a safety net for officials. I don’t necessarily believe this to be a conscious thing. In fact, I believe that the subconscious is even more intractable. Just as I do not believe the Wallendas would be as focused if they knew that there was not a safety net below them, I do not believe that NFL officials would miss as much if they did not have instant replay.

To put it another way, I do not believe that Prince would have taught himself how to play 27 different instruments had the technology of today existed when he came up. Necessity and conditions greatly influence performance.

Add to this the fact that officials were emboldened during their last work stoppage by how abysmal their replacements were and the embarrassment it caused the league. There is a correlation between one’s notion of how much he is needed and his complacency.

In the case of many, such as recently retired Ed Hochuli, who is an attorney and worth about $6 million, officiating was never vital to his financial wellbeing.

So how do we fix NFL officiating?

 

  • I believe the answer is counter-intuitive. We don’t need to expand replay, we need to reduce replay. It should be limited to inbounds, scoring, and turnovers. That is it. Some may contend that first downs should be included. If you do you are extending the game;
  • Fire the bad ones. A $200K a year weekend gig in which you keep your league paid travel miles and only work 6 months out of the year is a privilege, not a right. Most officials are like Hochuli and have day jobs. They will survive.
  • Understand that perfection is not the enemy of the good. No system is going to eliminate all bad and missed calls. If you want to make EVERYTHING reviewable within the last 2 minutes of the game, fine. That would have corrected the missed call between LA/NO.

An acronym for the NFL is “not for long”. Players and coaches have long known this if they did not perform. It should have the exact same meaning for officials.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Charlie Brown and Those Who Believe in the Jay-Z, NFL Partnership

Friday, August 23rd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

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JZ

Over the past 3 years, I have written 6 different columns related to Colin Kaepernick.

My guess is that anyone who wanted my view could go to War Room Sports to read them and get a pretty good idea about my thoughts on the matter. Simply put, I am not sure that I have anything new to add to the discussion about the recently announced Jay-Z partnership with the NFL. Ironically, the column that most reflects my thoughts about this union wasn’t actually written about Colin Kaepernick.

CBIt was about Charlie Brown and Lucy.

Essentially, I compared sports fans of Washington DC teams to Charlie Brown trying to kick the football held by Lucy. No matter how much history and evidence that she would always pull the ball away just as old Chuck approached, the fans believed this time would be different.

Those who believe in the Jay-Z and NFL partnership are like Charlie Brown.

They go through intellectual contortions to rationalize embracing it as a substantive response to the issues raised by Kaepernick. Contortions that the great gymnast Simone Biles could not reproduce.

The most common tropes are as follows:

  • This is chess not checkers; as if Jay-Z has some Machiavellian strategy that will secure the elimination of police brutality and other forms of oppression;
  • If you are not at the table you are on the menu; which makes merely being in the presence of power the goal rather than wielding power toward the elimination of cannibalism; or
  • Let’s give it a chance and wait and see; which sounds like a form of faith described in the book of Hebrews. The problem with this is that there is no substance of what is hoped for, nor evidence of things not seen.

Then there are those who espouse that maybe Jay-Z will secure some business set asides. To that I ask, for whom? The other Black folks who are among the 1 percent, which are not as impacted by the issues Kaepernick raised? Or maybe preferential hiring of Black folks for seasonal minimum wage jobs with no benefits in stadiums, that essentially codify the working poor?

Upon what track record are these hopes based? It seems above question that Jay-Z has been very supportive of the families directly impacted by police brutality. That is a positive contribution that should not be dismissed.

It is also on the back end of the oppressive process.

JZ

To the extent that poverty has been criminalized in America, gentrification and the displacement that accompanies it is one of those foundational issues. Any analysis of the construction of the Barclays center in Brooklyn must conclude that Jay-Z was the primary pitchman for the project to the community and little to none of the promises made to sell the project were kept. In the process, a whole bunch of Black people were moved out. They are no less homeless or otherwise displaced just because a Black face was central in the causing their exodus.

Jay-Z’s take away: less than 1% percent ownership in the Nets plus whatever profit he gained from its eventual sale. Should we be hopeful because it amounts to more than 30 pieces of silver?

I just don’t understand what about this warrants hope. In fact, this partnership is about as organic as an arranged marriage. I would go as far as saying it was foreseeable and straight out of the textbook on Sedating an Uprising 101. In chapter 1, it is clearly outlined that the ruling class throw the masses one whom they like to quell the revolt. That person discourages any further radical descent suggesting that any and all solutions must come from the very systems that are at the root of the problems to begin with.

In the end, the only people to benefit will be Jay-Z, his class comrades, who will be the only ones to make out from any business goodies secured, and the NFL shield, which provides cover for the “owners”.

As sobering as it is to come to the reality of how little this partnership will make a difference, it is as important to understand those who espouse the aforementioned tropes. They are as follows:

  • Affinity cheerleaders are those who think that Jay-Z will advocate for them just because he is
    Black….the demographic disproportionately adversely affected by the issues raised by Kaepernick. If you believe that you are engaging in willful naivety. Same skin is not always kin. It should be remembered that affinity is broader than just race. It can include gender, religion, etc.;
  • Cult of personality followers are those who are so obsessed with the person that they refuse to engage in any critical analysis of the person’s behavior and record. Anytime the word cult is used to describe a group, it is not good;
  • Opportunists are those who know nothing of substance will come from the partnership but see the platform as an opportunity to advance their own individualistic agenda. In this sense they are not Charlie Brown. Such are among the least trustworthy personalities in that they are not driven by any set of principles or have any interests in changing the systems of oppression, but only advancing their own place within such systems;

An underlying factor in all of the above is a lack of class analysis, which explains why poor Black folks think a billionaire rapper is on their side.

There is a hope.

Within 2 months of writing the Charlie Brown piece about the futility of Washington sports fans rooting for their teams, the Capitals won their first Stanley Cup title. So maybe I don’t know what the hell I am talking about! So, to all of those who believe that this partnership is something positive, go ahead take a run and try to kick the damn ball yet again. Lucy represents Jay-Z and the NFL. Charlie Brown represents you!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

The Righteous Indignation of Trent Williams

Monday, July 29th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Maybe the hold out of Washington All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams is just about getting a new or reworked contract. He has 2 years left on his current deal, with cap hits of $14.7 million this year and $14.6 million in 2020.

Maybe Williams wants to be like or surpass the other Trent…as in Raiders offensive lineman Trent Brown, who became the highest paid offensive linemen in league history. He will earn $36.75 million guaranteed and an average annual salary of $16.5 million per year.

After all, he holds ALL the leverage in this situation for a number of reasons:

  • He is arguably the best left tackle in the game, which protects the typical right throwing QB’s blind side;
  • His probable replacement, Ereck Flowers’ pass blocking has been described as “a backwards skating 300 pounder”. That is an attempted humorous way of saying that he isn’t very good;
  • Instability at this position makes it all the more difficult to throw your first round QB to the wolves

If it is just about money, all of the above explain the situation and there really is nothing unique about this. A “financial apology” may smooth over all animosity.

I suspect there is more to this hold out and recent reports support my suspicion.

In the winter, Williams underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his head. It was determined to be malignant, which means that it was made up of cancerous cells.

Subsequent reports say that Williams was unhappy with how the team doctors handled his situation and some have even said he seeks a trade as opposed to playing for the team again. Due to health privacy laws, the team is limited in what it can say about this matter without Williams’ consent.

Be that as it may, Williams is not the only player unhappy with the team doctors and overall handling of injuries. Keep in mind that Washington has been the most injury-riddled team in the NFL in each of the past 2 seasons. They put 26 players on the injured reserve in 2017 and topped that with 28 in 2018.

Football is a violent game and injuries must be baked into the planning recipe. To lead the league in injuries is bad luck.

To lead the league in consecutive years is extremely abnormal.

The team has tried a number of responses, including ice made of Gatorade.

That was not an attempt at humor but is true.

There are a number of theories, including the team’s tendency to draft players with an injury history under the thinking that they would be financial bargains. Say whatever one wants about owner Daniel Snyder, but he has no history of being cheap.

All of this leads me to believe two things: 1) that the prospect of Cancer is as terrifying for a 300 plus pound multimillionaire as it would be for any one of us, and 2) that such fear made him more conscious of his medical treatment than perhaps he had been before. More than a few of his teammates have echoed his concerns and stand by him.

The NFL’s “M.O.” is to treat players the way a factory treats a conveyor belt. When they are of no more use, they are discarded and replaced. Players are not conveyor belts in a factory. They are human beings. The fact that they are very well paid human beings does not mean that they forfeit the desire to play with their grandchildren one day.

Then again, it could be just about money. I’m sure that some will utter the tired trope, “he signed a contract and he should honor his contract”. Teams cut players under contract all the time. In other words, it’s only a contract as long as the team says it’s a contract. Under those conditions, holding out is the player’s only direct leverage.

Either way, I’m on the side of the players, which is to say labor. You need go no further than the health struggles of retired players to know how little the NFL cares about its most valuable asset and how hard it has resisted the moral responsibility to take care of them. When one considers all of this, Trent Williams’ indignation is more than righteous!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

What to Take from the Kaepernick/Reid Settlement

Friday, February 22nd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

CK

There are some important things to take away from the collusion settlement between the NFL, Colin Kaepernick, and Eric Reid. I believe it is instructive for other professional athletes, as well as larger movements for justice to outline them in detail.

The first is that you can take a stand on principal and still come out ahead in the long run.

Some estimate the settlement to be in the range of $60-$80 million. It is unclear if that is for both or if that is just Kaepernick’s share. Regardless, in Reid’s case, he just signed a 3-year extension with the Panthers worth $22 million. Surely his share is at least $7 million, which more than recoups what he would have made before signing with the Panthers this year. In Kaepernick’s case, Forbes magazine does a really good job of using multiple models to assess what his value would have been over the 2017-2018 seasons. Even if he were signed as a backup, he would have made $4-$10 million. As a starter; $21-$35 million. The wild card, even if he signed as a backup, is the Case Keenum factor. Keenum signed as a backup with the Vikings and parlayed a great season into a $36 million deal, $25 million of which was guaranteed. Given that Kaepernick is better than Keenum and that 32 NFL starting QBs will not all play 16 games, it is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that Kaepernick could have done the same. According to the Forbes models, add about another $21 million for damages and projected lost wages and you could get to about $56 million. This does not count the Nike income estimated to be in the millions, as well as the book and movie deals, and the speaking circuit fees, which he has yet to tap. Most of what I just cited would not have been available had he not protested. So regardless of your assumptions and math, Colin Kaepernick is way ahead!

The second takeaway is that the conventional thinking of athletes, their agents and PR professionals about avoiding hot button political issues to protect one’s “brand” is often wrong!

To understand this, one must come to realize that corporate America is amoral. It could not care less about the right or wrong of the issue. It only cares about profits. If it could make a commercial about Trump, the Alt-Right and Klan, and make money, it would do it tomorrow. The other factor is that a lot of people are sheep. How many people wearing those Che Guevara t-shirts do you believe actually know anything about the man or his cause? Nike understood this well and cashed in on the Kaepernick’s “martyrdom”.

ERKaepernick and Reid are not the only examples. Marshawn Lynch, who was never the poster child for corporate America in its search for pitchmen, made up to $5 million a year from Skittles. Allen Iverson made $40-$50 million in endorsements as the Prince Athlete of the Urban Hip-Hop Counterculture. Even today, he has a lifelong contract with Reebok.

Yet, another lesson is that one may have to take a step back before moving forward. But that is not at all a foreign concept in sports. Mediocre teams are always pondering if they want to stay average or tear the whole thing down and start over, with the goal of creating something better in the long run. If we transfer that line of thinking to our politics, maybe we can get off the “lesser of the two evil”, Democrat/Republican merry-go-round and build a better alternative.

Finally, the last thing to take away is that labor has more leverage than fans. This is to say that one would be hard pressed to make the case that the various protesting of the NFL, though I applaud for intent, played much of a role in this outcome. After all, NFL ratings were up last year for the first time in 3 years.

Now, none of this guarantees that Kaepernick will ever again play in the NFL. In fact, part of the settlement may have been that he never plays again. No one knows.  What it does show is that athletes can indeed take a stand for issues larger than themselves and come out on the other end more than validating their role model status. Let’s hope more take note and follow suit.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

The 10-Year Super Bowl Rematch Rule

Sunday, February 3rd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

SB

Tonight will be the 8th Super Bowl rematch.

There is an interesting pattern that may be a predictor of tonight’s winner.

I call it the 10-year rematch rule, which shows that when the two franchises meet again, at least 10 years later, the loser of the first meeting wins the second meeting.

There are 3 precedents: Washington lost to Miami after the 1972 season, but won after the 1982 season. Pittsburgh beat Dallas after the 1978 season, but lost to the Cowboys after the 1995 season. Philly lost to New England after the 2004 season, but won last year.

When the rematch is inside 10 years, the same team wins both: Steelers over Cowboys after the 1975 and 1978 seasons, Niners over Bengals after the 1981 and 1988 seasons, Cowboys over Bills after the 1992 and 1993 seasons, and the Giants over the Patriots after the 2007 and 2011 seasons.

SB XXXVI (Getty Images/Ringer Illustration)

SB XXXVI (Getty Images/Ringer Illustration)

So, according to this pattern, the Rams will win tonight.

Yes, I’m grasping at straws. It’s been a tough year for #SteelerNation and I have no interest in it being topped off by the Patriots joining us on top of the Super Bowl ring mountain.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

So Much for Alabama or Duke Beating Pro Teams

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

AD

While I was away, two things happened that hopefully finally put to rest a narrative that never had any credence to begin with: the utterly ridiculous notion that a great college football or basketball team could beat the worst pro teams.

Clemson took the big bad Alabama Crimson Tide to the woodshed.

An unranked Syracuse team went on the road into Cameron Indoor to beat Duke.

This is not to take anything away from Alabama or Duke. The high-level performance of both programs is the gold standard for greatness….at the college level. Leave what is already great alone and stop trying to make it something that it fundamentally is not.

I confess that this is a fun bar room discussion. However, you will have to have been in the bar too long if you actually believe a team of college athletes, even the most talented, at 18-22 years of age, are going to beat a team of GROWN ASS MEN, who play the game for a living.

2001 Miami Hurricanes

2001 Miami Hurricanes

Nevertheless, for entertainment purposes only, let us go with the bar room vibe for a minute. The 2001 Miami Hurricanes is the greatest college football team of my lifetime. Consider their depth at running back alone: Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Frank Gore. Other future NFL stars included Johnathan Vilma, DJ Williams (his father and uncle were teammates of mine), Ed Reed, Vince Wilfork, Bryant McKinnie, Jeremy Shockey, and Kellen Winslow Jr. So, with that talent, how can I be so sure that it would not have stood a chance against the Carolina Panthers or Detroit Lions, who won a combined three games between them that year? Two words: Ken Dorsey. He was their QB and very good at the COLLEGE LEVEL. However, he was a total dud at the pro level. In other words, he could not beat anyone once he did become a pro. Why on Earth would you believe that he could beat pro teams while he was still in college?

On even the greatest and most talent-rich college team, maybe a 3rd of the starters become NFL players of any note. Simply put, most college starters, even at the highest level, simply are not good enough to play professionally. But you believe that they would beat the pros?

GTFOOHWTBS!

LA

Let us consider basketball. The gold standard historically is without question the Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) era UCLA Bruins. He was there from 1966-69 and I am positive that we will never see another team dominate college basketball as it did. The worst team in the NBA during the 1968-69 season was the Phoenix Suns, winning only 16 games. Yet that team had seven players average double-figures, led by a future Hall of Famer named Gail Goodrich. UCLA would not have stood a chance. Jabbar was going to be Jabbar. Pros could not have stopped him as a freshman. However, they would not beat pro teams.

The only exception to this rule…and it would only be for one game, would be baseball. A college baseball team with a young stud like Roger Clemons from Texas or Sandy Koufax out of Cincinnati, on the rare days he had his control at that stage of his development, could shut down a professional batting lineup. However, no college team will have more than one.

I guess what baffles me most of all is why do we even care? Why this obsession with forcing apples to compete with oranges? Can’t we just appreciate the greatness of Serena Williams and the Lady UConn Huskies basketball team without asking could they beat men?

Greatness is too rare to be subjected to steroid-laced hypotheticals for our unquenchable amusement.  Alabama is the the greatest college football dynasty ever. Duke has been the most high performing college basketball program for 30 years. That is good enough for me.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Ode to the Wizard of Baltimore

Sunday, January 6th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

ON

If you want to know one of the reasons why six of the eight Black NFL head coaches were fired this year, you can consult with ESPN reporter and NFL apologist Chris Mortenson, who always has the league’s back in his “reporting” on the issue. Or you could ask yourself why there was never any groundswell among the professional sports punditry class about finding the next Ozzie Newsome to be your team’s general manager?

After 16 years at the helm of the Baltimore Ravens, the Hall of Fame Tight End will be retiring.

His resume includes the following:

  • 200 wins for a 54% winning percentage
  • 10 playoff appearances
  • 6 division titles
  • 2 Super Bowl wins
  • 4 of his draft picks are either current or surefire future Hall of Famers in Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Jonathan Ogden, and Terrell Suggs

This is impressive in and of itself. It is even more impressive when one considers that the Ravens have never had an upper-echelon quarterback. Joe Flacco had an upper-echelon season in 2012 and much to the chagrin of Raven fans, parlayed it into a huge and crippling contract extension. However, no one has, nor ever will, mistake him for Johnny Unitas.

Nevertheless, the Newsome-built Ravens have gone toe-to-toe with one of the most stable and consistent franchises in all of sports: MY PITTSBURGH STEELERS. Not only have they more than held their own, but also, in the process, they have created the best rivalry in the NFL, and one of the best in all of sports.

So why hasn’t there been any groundswell to find the next Ozzie Newsome to be the GM of an NFL team? This is where the answers get complicated. Yes, the same ole racial bias is at play on some level or another. However, I suspect that the debt proof model of the NFL is at least as much at play here. In just about any other business, if you show the persistent incompetence that Detroit, Oakland, Washington, Cleveland etc. have shown over the past 20 years, you would either go bankrupt and/or out of business. At the very least, you would leave no stone unturned to fix the problem…even if that means hire Black folks to run the show.

Not in the NFL. Incompetence is no obstacle to profitability and as a result, teams keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. In fact, a case can be made that the uninterrupted profits actually undermine innovative, out of the box thinking, and embolden outdated bigoted attitudes. After all, what price is there to pay? One need go no further than to look at the well-intended but largely ineffective protesting of the league over its treatment of Colin Kaepernick.

The other factor that I believe gets far too little attention is the notion that merely putting Black faces in what have traditionally been White places will in of itself improve the situation. I believe that there is enough evidence both inside and outside of sports to argue that, at best, such is an incomplete solution. It places too much emphasis on individual character (which obviously is important) and too little on the need for systemic and structural changes.  It is akin to putting clean wine into a dirty bottle or lipstick on a pig, or whatever analogy one wants to use. The bottom line is that such cosmetics do not fundamentally change the situation. They merely mask the problem.  If we are sincere in our diversity efforts, be they within sports, politics, business, etc., we must ask ourselves these two fundamental questions: 1) is the issue individual or systemic? If one’s conclusion is that the issues are individual, then question 2 is not necessary. One simply gets better people. However, if the answer to question 1 is systemic, then that brings about question 2, which is: do we really want to change the system or simply improve our own individual place within the system?

As good as Ozzie Newsome has been with the Ravens, there would even be a limit to how much 32 of him as NFL GM’s could change the system. Why? Because they would need the support of owners. It is at this point when some will say that the answer is more Black owners.  Pump the breaks on that as well. Of the few Black folks who have acquired the capital to buy an NFL team, do you really think that their mindsets are dramatically different from the current status quo NFL owners? If it were, could he/she have gotten in a position to buy a team?

BCCapitalism is predatory and therefore most of those who have amassed a significant amount of capital are predators. Short of vulgar opportunism, such mindsets have little interests in social justice in general and particularly how many Black coaches are hired and fired.

So bid a fond farewell and richly deserved retirement to Ozzie Newsome. He has been the single most underappreciated General Manager in all of sports for the better part of the last 15 years. But if you think that more Ozzie Newsomes would have automatically stopped what happened on “Black Monday” you have grossly underestimated what this game is all about.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports