I just broke up with a lifelong friend and it feels kind of
crappy. I will no longer spend my Sundays (and Mondays and Thursdays) camped
out in front of the flat screen. Yep, I am done with professional football.
It's a cultural chasm I am no longer willing to leap.
In the scheme of things that we call Life, sports in
general--and football in particular--isn't really that important. But football
and me go back a long way. I embraced the Cleveland Browns in the early 1960s.
Back when they were good. Why the Browns for a kid growing up fifty miles south
of Mile High Stadium is still a mystery to me. Then John Elway came along and
everything changed. I was a Broncos fan for life.
In the mean time, I played football from fifth grade through
college. Some world-class, lifelong friendships came from those teams.
Football and me, we had a thing. The Denver Broncos won
Super Bowl 50 on my birthday, for crying out loud. How much more personal can
it get?
Then came the protests during the national anthem.
That last sentence is a line of demarcation. Many readers
reflexively check the boxes: male Caucasian, late 50s, suburban address. I am,
in some minds, part of the problem. The person who should gain some awareness
of the problem highlighted by the anthem protests and be moved to action.
The fact is that I have been moved to action. It's just not
what most anthem protesters expected to happen. Their efforts to raise
awareness certainly made me more aware of how tone-deaf both the
player-protesters and owners are. Witnessing action and inaction, respectively,
has made me aware that I can get along just fine outside of the self-contained
universe known as the National Football League.
NFL players have now worn pink accessories every October to
help raise awareness for the fight against breast cancer. That's a good thing.
I'm sure cancer researchers can demonstrate the real-world benefits of pink
cleats on the national stage. For most viewers, it only registers as another
color on the screen.
Ten years of pink also has a bit of a dark side. Does
wearing pink wrist bands for four games qualify a player as actually fighting
the scourge of cancer? How many players have given of themselves off the field
to further this worthy fight? Too often we settle for a show of hands for or
against and think that somehow we're actually engaged.
This is the culture of sharing opinions instead of getting
one's hands dirty that has gripped our world. It is one that has helped ruin
the NFL experience for me. During the season of discontent we heard reports of
a miniscule percentage of anthem protesters being moved to engage their
community leaders regarding the fuzzy reasons they were protesting. The player
who started this movement couldn't even distill his reasoning into a coherent
sentence.
Making a statement/sharing an opinion/raising awareness is a
thing unto itself these days. It's the "look at me" culture that
grips the NFL. What happens more often than not when a player makes a play? He
will run away from the pack and stand, with chest puffed out, for the world to
look at him. I love a good end zone celebration or a sack dance. I had one of
my own in college. But that, ugh, I just HATE. That is the first step onto the
slippery slope for me. But wait, there's more.
Awareness-raising is a good thing if the goal is to move
people to consider the merits of the activity. When awareness morphs into
action the situation has a chance of profound, lasting change. However, when
raising awareness takes a distant second place to protest, then the opposite
effect often takes root.
This is the second of three mistakes NFL players are making.
If you want to sell something you have to consider the
market. The NFL has promoted old-fashioned patriotism for years. It is one of
the pieces that moved professional football into the preeminent sports position
in the American psyche. Taking that place for granted may earn some hard
lessons. Players and owners alike are counting on the place the NFL has in our
culture as they both race away from one of the dominant demographics that has
granted them their lifestyles.
For the players, they are counting on a solid platform to
share their opinions. The owners are counting on the solidity of the platform
to not crumble. Perhaps both are dead wrong.
The players chose the very symbol of patriotism for their
protest. It certainly got attention; but attention doesn't necessarily
translate into awareness. And without awareness there is no action. The players
grossly misread their market, perhaps thinking that the shock value would
somehow gain traction for a movement of change. That, though, is extremely
generous. What appears to be the truth, rather, is that no thought whatsoever
went into how to actually motivate the change for which they advocate.
We live in a social media-driven culture where it is not
just OK to say whatever one wants, no matter how objectionable. In fact, it is
encouraged. The age group in which NFL players live is dominated by this ethos.
To engage in this on the stage of the national anthem is myopic at best and at
cross-purposes with any professed desire for change.
The protests have caused me to tune out rather than step up.
The message, at least from fully-padded athletes, is null and void. It's not
sexy to get involved in cultural change with no cameras following you. Some, to
their credit, are doing just that. Most, though, mistakenly project the
attitude that face time is really all that matters to them.
The NFL owners are complicit in this debacle. By remaining
silent as their employees publicly damage their industry they show the
cowardice that might just ultimately bring them what they deserve. Has the NFL
reached the top of its bell curve? Perhaps it is gaining speed down the other
side. NFL owners are not entrepreneurs taking risks to achieve a vision. They
are demonstrating their true selves: tone-deaf managers afraid to leave the
castle hoping that the growing cracks in the walls don't bring the roof down.
Just when many football fans thought that the protests were
ruinous enough, we achieved Level Three. The third mistake the anthem
protesters made was to allow their message to get hijacked. What was barely
articulated before is now complete gibberish. It all has to do with a response
to the President.
President Trump recently did what he apparently always does:
he made statements in a political rally that stir people up. I think he likes
that. Whether or not you count yourself part of the group who like this too,
one thing is certain. After the president made statements about the future
employment of NFL players who continue to protest, those same players had a
strong and immediate reaction.
What started as a movement to shed light on issues regarding
the treatment of less-advantaged fellow Americans suddenly became a political
dog fight between petulant players and their President. It turned from
purported lifting of their fellow man into a public argument with a single man.
Mistake three the NFL protesters made was allowing whatever
message they had to be hijacked and turned into a political argument. Instead
of highlighting their message about police brutality they suddenly became more
concerned about an apology from a verbal knucklehead in Washington .
This, clearly, highlights the "look at me" culture
that motivates and informs these NFL players. It really IS about them. How
should those less fortunate souls feel who are the actual victims of the dark
side of our society now that their messengers are all about themselves? Once a
protest is so radically re-branded, there is no going back to the original
message. This is the very definition of cognitive dissonance for the ones who
are purportedly the end users in a severely bungled attempt at
awareness-raising.
In our house we decided to quit shelling out the monthly
fees for the "privilege" of watching the NFL cable dynasty. We are
sports fans, and are finding just as much enjoyment rooting for the great
rivalries in the NHL. That's right: hockey. Canadians and Russians who
entertain and inspire us with athletic ability and who don't protest anything.
Professional football really isn't that important. These
protests have demonstrated that it is mostly noise I can do without. So goodbye,
National Football League. You decided that I should no longer care. It's
obvious that neither players or owners care about me. It's too bad; you shoulda
seen my sack dance.
