Post by TheShadow on Dec 20, 2003 12:07:42 GMT -5
www.oaklandtribune.com
By Art Spander
AS AN AMERICAN, I'm personally apologizing to Saddam Hussein. Not for getting captured. For getting captured on a pro football Sunday, which insured the bearded guy of getting upstaged.
That should be a warning to Osama bin Laden.
If he's going be taken, ol' bin should make sure it occurs in May or June. Not in the fall when the NFL is playing.
Not on an afternoon, as last week, when Joe Horn of the New Orleans Saints pulls out a cell phone hidden in the padding around a goal post after a touchdown and calls home.
Not on an afternoon when Matt Millen, president of the Detroit Lions, uses a homosexual epithet in reference to Kansas City Chiefs player Johnnie Morton, a former member of the Lions.
We wait anxiously for Sunday's games, to learn what else is possible in sport's theater of the absurd. Does someone hide a computer in a football and after a touchdown send an e-mail to commissioner Paul Tagliabue? Or tuck a phone in his pants and call the CIA?
"It has become a three-ring circus out there," said Art Modell. He ought to know. Modell is in his last year of owning the Baltimore Ravens. He was the man who helped negotiate big-time TV contracts for the NFL. TV is the reason they've sent in the clowns.
Horn of the Saints with his cell phone trick, that drew a $30,000 fine. T.J. Duckett of Atlanta dancing in the end zone after a touchdown when the Falcons trailed, 31-0. Millen, the Lions executive, and former Raider and 49er player, slurring homosexuals.
Fits in with the NFL's slogan, "On any given Sunday."
Bill Callahan called the Raiders the dumbest team in America for the way they play, and people made a federal case out of the remark.
Compared to what others say or do, Callahan is a boy scout, and the Raiders are little Einsteins.
Dumb isn't jumping offsides or tackling opponents out of bounds and drawing penalties. Dumb is embarrassing yourself and your sport.
It's no longer about scoring a touchdown, it's about the actions after scoring a touchdown. Announcers on ESPN whine that the tail is wagging the Golden Retriever, but Horn and Duckett -- and Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals for holding up a printed plea not to be fined for holding up the printed plea -- dominated the telecasts.
"Hey, grandma, that Paris Hilton sex video is absolutely disgraceful. Let's watch it again and you'll see."
Journalists spent the week debating whether Horn using the cell phone after a TD catch was worse than Millen using a pejorative for gays in berating Morton.
It's our brave new world of fun and games, dumb and dumber than you can imagine.
Women agreeing to play football in their underwear in the Lingerie Bowl, to be shown at halftime of the Super Bowl, from a different stadium in a different city. (Dodge division of Daimler Chrysler originally was the title sponsor, thinking it was a macho way to sell cars but somebody in charge decided it wasn't a terribly smart idea. Wives buy cars too).
The way things are progressing, or regressing, a coach getting fired, as was Jim Fassel of the New York Giants three days ago is practically the only NFL news which doesn't make one cringe. Unless you're the coach losing his job.
Millen obviously didn't think before he spoke, while in contrast Horn and Johnson thought carefully before they acted. Yet the stunts, while shameless, didn't prove individually injurious. That couldn't be said of Millen's comment, which encompassed an entire group.
Matt, naturally, apologized, and presumably nothing much will happen to him ... for the remark. The way the Lions have performed on his watch alone could be enough to get him dismissed.
Skeptics question the morals and standards of a league which determines showboating should be penalized heavily, although Horn acted as if $30,000 was chump change, while virtually ignoring a spoken insult which affected a segment of the population.
Millen's unfortunate choice of phrase could be viewed as unnerving, even revolting. But because he simply yelled at a man, it was poor video, especially compared to cell phones, dances and signs.
In a way, it was a late entry in the NFL's weekend of the bizarre, but it has staying power and it is still being discussed.
You almost are able to forgive a guy calling home. It's difficult to forgive Millen calling Morton what he did. What we now should call the NFL is anyone's guess.
By Art Spander
AS AN AMERICAN, I'm personally apologizing to Saddam Hussein. Not for getting captured. For getting captured on a pro football Sunday, which insured the bearded guy of getting upstaged.
That should be a warning to Osama bin Laden.
If he's going be taken, ol' bin should make sure it occurs in May or June. Not in the fall when the NFL is playing.
Not on an afternoon, as last week, when Joe Horn of the New Orleans Saints pulls out a cell phone hidden in the padding around a goal post after a touchdown and calls home.
Not on an afternoon when Matt Millen, president of the Detroit Lions, uses a homosexual epithet in reference to Kansas City Chiefs player Johnnie Morton, a former member of the Lions.
We wait anxiously for Sunday's games, to learn what else is possible in sport's theater of the absurd. Does someone hide a computer in a football and after a touchdown send an e-mail to commissioner Paul Tagliabue? Or tuck a phone in his pants and call the CIA?
"It has become a three-ring circus out there," said Art Modell. He ought to know. Modell is in his last year of owning the Baltimore Ravens. He was the man who helped negotiate big-time TV contracts for the NFL. TV is the reason they've sent in the clowns.
Horn of the Saints with his cell phone trick, that drew a $30,000 fine. T.J. Duckett of Atlanta dancing in the end zone after a touchdown when the Falcons trailed, 31-0. Millen, the Lions executive, and former Raider and 49er player, slurring homosexuals.
Fits in with the NFL's slogan, "On any given Sunday."
Bill Callahan called the Raiders the dumbest team in America for the way they play, and people made a federal case out of the remark.
Compared to what others say or do, Callahan is a boy scout, and the Raiders are little Einsteins.
Dumb isn't jumping offsides or tackling opponents out of bounds and drawing penalties. Dumb is embarrassing yourself and your sport.
It's no longer about scoring a touchdown, it's about the actions after scoring a touchdown. Announcers on ESPN whine that the tail is wagging the Golden Retriever, but Horn and Duckett -- and Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals for holding up a printed plea not to be fined for holding up the printed plea -- dominated the telecasts.
"Hey, grandma, that Paris Hilton sex video is absolutely disgraceful. Let's watch it again and you'll see."
Journalists spent the week debating whether Horn using the cell phone after a TD catch was worse than Millen using a pejorative for gays in berating Morton.
It's our brave new world of fun and games, dumb and dumber than you can imagine.
Women agreeing to play football in their underwear in the Lingerie Bowl, to be shown at halftime of the Super Bowl, from a different stadium in a different city. (Dodge division of Daimler Chrysler originally was the title sponsor, thinking it was a macho way to sell cars but somebody in charge decided it wasn't a terribly smart idea. Wives buy cars too).
The way things are progressing, or regressing, a coach getting fired, as was Jim Fassel of the New York Giants three days ago is practically the only NFL news which doesn't make one cringe. Unless you're the coach losing his job.
Millen obviously didn't think before he spoke, while in contrast Horn and Johnson thought carefully before they acted. Yet the stunts, while shameless, didn't prove individually injurious. That couldn't be said of Millen's comment, which encompassed an entire group.
Matt, naturally, apologized, and presumably nothing much will happen to him ... for the remark. The way the Lions have performed on his watch alone could be enough to get him dismissed.
Skeptics question the morals and standards of a league which determines showboating should be penalized heavily, although Horn acted as if $30,000 was chump change, while virtually ignoring a spoken insult which affected a segment of the population.
Millen's unfortunate choice of phrase could be viewed as unnerving, even revolting. But because he simply yelled at a man, it was poor video, especially compared to cell phones, dances and signs.
In a way, it was a late entry in the NFL's weekend of the bizarre, but it has staying power and it is still being discussed.
You almost are able to forgive a guy calling home. It's difficult to forgive Millen calling Morton what he did. What we now should call the NFL is anyone's guess.