Kaepernick, Omaha! & why NFL needs teams to perform national anthem talent shows

(673 words)

My most exasperating gift is an uncanny ability to earn vast sums of money for those who don’t need it while simultaneously earning squat for myself.

Sadly, the most frequent recipient of this mental largess is, alas, the greedmeister billionaires who run the NFL. I’m always coming up with ways to improve our most popular, yet flawed game.

One example they adopted last year: Throw-forward jerseys.

And, oh, yeah, we’re getting to Colin Kaepernick. 

I came up with throw-forward jerseys after being sickened by the sight of my Pittsburgh Steelers twice each year having to wear hideous throw-back jerseys. I said several years ago that they ought to begin selling equally hideous futuristic jersey.

And what happened last year?

Ta! Da! The gave us special “Color Rush” jerseys. They were flashy. They were daring.

They were unwatchable. 

One game between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills saw its ratings progressively tank because team jerseys were indistinguishable to colorblind viewers.

Of course, that didn’t matter. What mattered was they sold a lot of jerseys.

This year’s Brainstorm #1 stems from the retirement of Peyton Manning, who is now on TV more than when he actually played.

He’s a shoo-in for the NFL Hall of Fame in 2021. What’s equally obvious is he’ll include “Omaha!” in his induction speech.

“Omaha!” was the word he used to alert teammates he’d be changing the play. It’s now part of football lexicon. Anywhere people gather to play or jaw about football someone is bound to shout, “Omaha!”

My idea is for the NFL to sell sponsorship rights to the next key word for the 2016 season. And it is brand specific.

The word is “Pizza!”

See where this is going?

A quarterback would approach the line of scrimmage, survey the defense and begin shouting his gibberish, something like: “Red-24! Red-24! Blue-19!”

Then comes the Omaha-replacing sponsorship:

“Pizza! Pizza! Hut! Hut!”

Americans by the millions would dutifully pause the action and like robots dial Pizza Hut to order an 8-foot belly-buster with pepperoni and sausage.

Pure genius, I tell you.

One man no one will hear yelling “Pizza Hut!” this year is Colin Kaepernick. He’s done what neither Trump nor Clinton ever could: He’s united the country.

By disrespectfully sitting through the National Anthem, he’s angered everyone.

And I love it.

Not his protest, which seems feckless. I just love anyone who makes the NFL squirm.

Remember, just last year it was revealed the greedy bastards were charging the Department of Defense $5.4 million for staging those heart-tugging halftime reunions between returning soldiers and their families.

It was pure gall.

They’ve behaved in the same craven manner over domestic violence, breast cancer and — ha! — responsible drinking.

So I hope Kaepernick keeps them twisting until they drum him out of the league.

Then I hope someone with more subtle thinking than Kaepernick picks up the torch for a cause that deserves attention, yes, even during a football game.

That brings me to Brainstorm #2:

Make both teams compete to see who can perform a better national anthem with the winner getting the ball first. The talent show would replace the coin toss. Fans all over could vote.

Kaepernick’s folly obscures the fact that the national anthem at football games is a joke. Hockey fans (not players) really sing it and it’s beautiful.

No one sings it at NFL games, especially the players, who stand there mute or scratching themselves. They set a terrible example.

Having teams perform the national anthem would help the league appeal to the demographic that enjoys “America’s Got Talent!” 

Rehearsal could be a part of every practice. Why isn’t it already?

Each team would be given two minutes to sing the anthem and could include a patriotic skit.

Most wins could be included in the complicated tie breaker system to determine playoff eligibility.

That’s enough genius for now. Time to eat.

Care to guess what’s for lunch?

That’s right.

Pizza! Hut! Hut Hut!

Related …

NFL not rich enough: needs throw-forward jerseys

America needs an all-gay NFL team

Solution to NFL over-officiating: armless linemen!

The Baltimore Rays & the NFL’s on-going disgrace

Cheering for a devil of an NFL celebration

Seeing red over NFL pink

NFL’s a bore; here are five ways to save it

Re-run Sunday: NFL needs armless linemen

Are you ready for some football? Me, neither. Steelers are off today and the Pirates are in the thick of a pennant race. I still maintain the biggest problem with the NFL is over-officiating. They dominate, slow and ruin the game. This ’11 post offers one solution (others linked below): armless linemen! Yes, armless linemen would cut down on holding.

Have a great Sunday, my friends!

Tune in tomorrow when, barring any unforeseen adventures, I intend to write about our ugliest presidents. Yes, Donald Trump continues to inspire.

It was another weekend of the ruling elite infuriating the 99 percent of Americans who feel helpless about doing anything in the face of tyrannical oppression.

I’m talking about the officiating in the NFL.

We can disagree about income disparity, presidential politics and whether God’s playing favorites with the Denver Broncos because Tim Tebow’s such a Savior suck up (my take, “Jesus, Tebow’s a winner”).

But I think we can all agree NFL over-officiating is ruining the game. Calls are excessive and confusing and now every scoring play is under review. That makes sense until you realize the next logical step is reviewing goal line plays that don’t involve scoring but, upon further review, might have.

Some fans say this is good because getting it right is essential.

Well, no, it isn’t. If it was, we’d have cameras isolating every single player to ensure they weren’t committing an infraction.

What’s essential is getting it as close to right as possible without making the games last even longer than they already do.

You may not have noticed amidst all the beer and truck commercials, but the typical 3:15 minute football broadcast has just 11 minutes of action.

That’s right. This January 2010 Wall Street Journal report found the ball is in play for just 11 minutes. That means for every 60-minute game we’re getting 49 minutes of foreplay.

That’s a lot of teasing anticipation for a game that considers itself manly.

Speaking of foreplay, let me get to the point and -- fear not -- this won’t take long. I’m one to talk when it comes to delivering a full 11 minutes of satisfying action.

I have several radical solutions to over-officiating.

First, get rid of instant replay and all but two officials -- one for the offense, one for the defense -- and ask the players to agree to play under the honor system.

That means if a player commits a foul, he needs to raise his hand and confess his sins. Then he needs to apologize to the player he’s victimized while one of the two referees steps off the penalty yardage.

Introducing a player honor system would flip the culture of showboating and finger pointing on its head and provide exemplary role models for an America starving for them.

My friend Ron at the bar has a good suggestion. He usually does. In fact, he’s the inspiration for many of these posts. If Ron ever decides to give full sobriety a shot I might have to spend half my time blogging about something like gardening.

He suggests changing the rules so the only time a penalty is called is when a player uses both hands. This would eliminate many questionable calls.

But this has about as much chance of succeeding as does players conforming to the honor system -- although it would be hilarious to see the reaction to insufferable goody-goody Roger Goodell announcing the change.

Using just one hand goes against a lineman’s nature. We need something to ensure a player can’t use either hand in blocking.

We need armless linemen.

Every 11 man squad should have five lineman who for the good of the game have either lost or had team-approve doctors sever the limbs above the elbow.

I haven’t looked into, but I imagine there is a deep pool of armless and otherwise able-bodied men who have fought and sacrificed in our recent wars.

The flag wavers at the NFL should jump on this. This would be giving our disabled vets a place to excel where we can honor their service and allow them to be shining examples that nothing can stop men so motivated.

And think of what it would do to our fighting forces. Imagine the heroic risks they’d take on the battlefield if just the right injury might lead to a spot on an NFL roster.

I offer this idea knowing full well it is controversial and will be picked apart by critics who fail to realize NFL over-officiating is killing the game.

I’m going to spend the rest of the day trying to resolve some of the more obvious questions.

And I promise to get right back to you as soon as I figure out how an armless center can snap a football.

Seeing red over NFL pink

NFL sacks itself

NFL not rich enough: needs throw-forward jerseys

Dick Cheney should replace Simon on “Idol”

Am I ready for some football? Nope

Black men can’t kick

Chilled Super Bowls need Tommy Bahama Rule

(741 words)

If I were a man of means, I might consider spending about $10,000 to attend Super Bowl XLVIII being hosted by New York and played in New Jersey. That’s how much I figure it would cost to make this four-day event a comfortable splurge.

But I am not a man of means.

I am instead a mean man determined to spend the next five days at home hoping this ill-conceived Super Bowl is a logistical fiasco. I want traffic jams, hours-long security waits and the kind of cold, slushy weather that makes fans from grim Seattle wish they were home sipping some exotic five-bean blend.

New York is one of my top three favorite cities. Although I’ve never been there, from what I hear, East Rutherford, N.J., wouldn’t crack the top 300.

Pre-fatherhood, I used to go to Manhattan a couple of times a year. I’d enjoy the Lower East Side in spring, Rockefeller Center in summer and Central Park in fall.

Never once did I go to New York so I could see East Rutherford on Groundhog’s Day. 

Purists say football was meant to be played outdoors in nasty weather.

Football, yes.

Super Bowls, no.

I’m not one to advocate more rules for the over-officiated NFL, but there ought to be a Tommy Bahama Rule: No city can host a Super Bowl in a place where wearing a Tommy Bahama party shirt outdoors would result in goose pimples.

I know what fun it can be to go to an expensive Super Bowl.

Let me clarify: I know what fun it can be to be in a bunch of cheap French Quarter dive bars about a mile from where they’re playing an expensive Super Bowl.

It was Super Bowl XXXI in MCMXCVII. It was the year Green Bay beat New England XXXV to XXI.

Oh, and that’s another thing I despise about the NFL: this silly insistence on using incomprehensible Roman numerals for Super Bowls in a way that must have even  people in Rome saying WTF?

But it was 1997. Me and my buddies were so sure the Steelers were going to advance to the Super Bowl we bought tickets to New Orleans sure we’d have a great time.

It didn’t work out that way, but it didn’t matter.

It was still one of the best buddy weeks I’ve ever had and it featured one of the most magnificent buzzes of my life -- and I’m still one of those guys that achieves a good primal buzz about four times a week.

We had so much fun.

Part of the fun was that it was miserable in Pittsburgh and we weren’t there.

In New Orleans the temperatures were about 75. I was with two great buddies. We were having a ball.

I was wearing Tommy Bahama!

I think the buzz was so spectacular because all three of us had awakened sure we were going to die. Our heads were pounding, our stomachs queasy and we ached all over like we’d been run over by a Second Line funeral parade.

I guess something must have been going around.

But with alcoholic assistance and some Central Grocer muffaletta we persevered like men. Stupid, drunken men, sure, but men, indeed.

And with every drink our merry little trio began feeling better and better. 

I remember carrying a portable Hurricane into a little cigar shop down near Jackson Square, a place once known for public beheadings, to buy some stogies.

The smoke settled my soul.

I’ll never forget the feeling I had about four hours before that kick-off. I was with my friends. We were whooping it up. We were in New Orleans.

I’d survived a near-fatal hangover!

And none of us was burdened by the knowledge that any of the other guys was stupid enough to want to pay $500 for a ticket to the game (the prices have since quadrupled).

We spent the whole second half in the venerable Preservation Jazz Hall and didn’t even know who won until we saw the exuberant Packer fans streaming past outside.

Guaranteed, no one in the New York metro-area this weekend will have a day as splendid as mine was XIII years ago.

Such a pity.

Do you agree? Am I nuts? Is this winter Super Bowl a good idea?

I am eager to hear your thoughts.

Call me!

My number is DCCXXIV-CMLXI-MMDLVIII.

Related . . .

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NFL playoffs: a rooting fan's guide

(862 words)

All but four teams are left in the NFL march to the Super Bowl. That means the rest of the country needs to find some artificial reason to become momentary fans of foreign teams populated by mostly strangers and garden variety felons.

It’s particularly tough here in Pittsburgh where playoff football is considered our birthright. We’ve won more Super Bowls -- six -- than any other city and have in our collective scrapbook some of the NFL’s most heirloom plays and players.

I love the NFL.

And that’s not easy these days because I believe our premier sports league is in a steep decline.

These days to be a fan of the NFL, you need to first be a fan of beer and truck commercials. That’s what takes up most of the 3 1/2 hours of a typical game in which there is on average about 11 minutes of watching men actually playing football.

Infuriating refereeing leads to interminable delays while replay refs take forever to come up with calls that seem to defy logic, not to mention clear visual evidence. Career-ending injuries are pervasive. Tickets cost about $100; warm domestic beers about $10 -- and those are the pre-season prices.

The marquee players are often preening divas, many of whom have arrest records for beating either girlfriends, wives or the occasional over-served fans. The owners are egotistical asses, PEDs are rampant, analysts are blowhards, commissioner Roger Goodell has a messiah complex,Thursday and Sunday night games suck for home fans  . . .

Where was I? Oh, right.

I love the NFL!

So let me take you through my thought process on how I determine for whom I’m going to root. I ask myself the following questions:

Have I enjoyed myself in the team’s city? Do I know any fans from there? Are they obnoxious? Do they owe me any money? Do I owe them any money? Have they ever won a championship before? Is their owner a bigger jerk than the owner against whom he’s competing?

Let’s run ‘em down.

First up: San Francisco 49ers v. Atlanta Falcons.

My wife and I honeymooned in San Francisco and my every memory of being there is golden. Best part? We smuggled a bottle of cheap champagne and a sleeve of plastic cups onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Out in the center we popped the cork and announced to a host of smiling strangers, many of them internationals, “We just got married. We’d like you to join us in a toast to our marriage and your happiness!”

It was beautiful. We heard hearty congratulations in about a dozen foreign tongues. At least I think they were congratulations. They may have been saying “We love free hootch!” I never bothered to check.

I love the city. But the 49ers have won five Super Bowls. As a Steeler fan, I can’t abide them encroaching on our sacred six. So sorry, San Fran. You’re out.

Atlanta? It’s one of the few major U.S. cities in which I haven’t been there long enough to do anything more than urinate. When I think of Atlanta, I think of how obnoxious their fans were when they delivered the most devastating loss I’ve ever known, that being the Braves over the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992. So there’s really no reason for me to root for Atlanta.

In the AFC we have the Baltimore Ravens v. the New England Patriots:

This is a toughie because the Ravens are maybe Pittsburgh’s greatest rival ever and I really respect the way Baltimore plays football. And I’ve had some magnificent times in Baltimore. But there’s one outstanding reason for being against the Ravens and he wears no. 52.

That’s Ray Lewis. We’ll never know his role in the year 2000 double murders in Atlanta, but we know he knows who did it and two young men lie in graves soaked with tears of loved ones who cry out in vain for justice. That’s a lot to forgive.

And, yeah, I hate his pre-game dance, his sideline pep rallies, and how he tries to drag God onto the field when everyone knows God loves Dan Rooney and the Steelers.

That leaves the Patriots, which means that leaves next to nothing. I’ve had some nice times in Boston and am friends with several diehard fans. But I hate Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Together the pair won three Super Bowls in four years (2002-’05), but those were prior to their admission that they were guilty of massive cheating.

Ever since they’ve squandered the prime years of one of football’s greatest quarterbacks and only have two soul-searing Super Bowl losses to show for it.

And that pleases me.

So here’s for whom I’ll be rooting:

I want the Falcons to beat the 49ers, the Patriots to beat the Ravens and the Falcons to beat the Patriots.

Yes, I’m rooting for Atlanta, home to multitudes of people who pissed me off living a place I’ve only been to relieve my bladder.

It’s silly, shallow and superficial.

And that’s exactly the kind of analysis you can expect from here through the Super Bowl Sunday.

All wet.

Related . . .

• Solution to NFL over-officiating: Armless linemen!

• The NFL sacks itself

• NFL not rich enough: Needs ‘throwforward’ jerseys

• Seeing red over NFL pink

Solution to NFL over-officiating: armless linemen!

It was another weekend of the ruling elite infuriating the 99 percent of Americans who feel helpless about doing anything in the face of tyrannical oppression.

I’m talking about the officiating in the NFL.

We can disagree about income disparity, presidential politics and whether God’s playing favorites with the Denver Broncos because Tim Tebow’s such a Savior suck up (my take, “Jesus, Tebow’s a winner”).

But I think we can all agree NFL over-officiating is ruining the game. Calls are excessive and confusing and now every scoring play is under review. That makes sense until you realize the next logical step is reviewing goal line plays that don’t involve scoring but, upon further review, might have.

Some fans say this is good because getting it right is essential.

Well, no, it isn’t. If it was, we’d have cameras isolating every single player to ensure they weren’t committing an infraction.

What’s essential is getting it as close to right as possible without making the games last even longer than they already do.

You may not have noticed amidst all the beer and truck commercials, but the typical 3:15 minute football broadcast has just 11 minutes of action.

That’s right. This January 2010 Wall Street Journal report found the ball is in play for just 11 minutes. That means for every 60-minute game we’re getting 49 minutes of foreplay.

That’s a lot of teasing anticipation for a game that considers itself manly.

Speaking of foreplay, let me get to the point and -- fear not -- this won’t take long. I’m one to talk when it comes to delivering a full 11 minutes of satisfying action.

I have several radical solutions to over-officiating.

First, get rid of instant replay and all but two officials -- one for the offense, one for the defense -- and ask the players to agree to play under the honor system.

That means if a player commits a foul, he needs to raise his hand and confess his sins. Then he needs to apologize to the player he’s victimized while one of the two referees steps off the penalty yardage.

Introducing a player honor system would flip the culture of showboating and finger pointing on its head and provide exemplary role models for an America starving for them.

My friend Ron at the bar has a good suggestion. He usually does. In fact, he’s the inspiration for many of these posts. If Ron ever decides to give full sobriety a shot I might have to spend half my time blogging about something like gardening.

He suggests changing the rules so the only time a penalty is called is when a player uses both hands. This would eliminate many questionable calls.

But this has about as much chance of succeeding as does players conforming to the honor system -- although it would be hilarious to see the reaction to insufferable goody-goody Roger Goodell announcing the change.

Using just one hand goes against a lineman’s nature. We need something to ensure a player can’t use either hand in blocking.

We need armless linemen.

Every 11 man squad should have five lineman who for the good of the game have either lost or had team-approve doctors sever the limbs above the elbow.

I haven’t looked into, but I imagine there is a deep pool of armless and otherwise able-bodied men who have fought and sacrificed in our recent wars.

The flag wavers at the NFL should jump on this. This would be giving our disabled vets a place to excel where we can honor their service and allow them to be shining examples that nothing can stop men so motivated.

And think of what it would do to our fighting forces. Imagine the heroic risks they’d take on the battlefield if just the right injury might lead to a spot on an NFL roster.

I offer this idea knowing full well it is controversial and will be picked apart by critics who fail to realize NFL over-officiating is killing the game.

I’m going to spend the rest of the day trying to resolve some of the more obvious questions.

And I promise to get right back to you as soon as I figure out how an armless center can snap a football.