Here are on a cool Saturday morning eating our wheaties and having to deal with the collateral damage of the NFL leadership’s choices from Monday’s tragic moment when Hamlin collapsed during the game.
Why isn’t the NFL following its own rules? Zac Taylor, coach of the Bengals responded accordingly.
What most of us saw Monday night is Ryan Clark, albeit responding emotionally to the player collapsing. Heartfelt message, no shame. What do we do with this message, it gets played everywhere. ‘Putting our lives on the line’ is the focus of this rant.
This would equate NFL players with those in law enforcement, EMT’s, firemen, people who chose to run into the towers on 9/11 to save lives knowing their own lives were at risk. I don’t recall athletes running into burning buildings on nightly news reels to peel charred babies from a house fire, or giving cpr to anyone let alone Hamlin (their teammate), or taking Omaha beach. Those who do this regularly in the civilian world or in the military must get a large amount of timeouts and cancellations in their bag of goodies to use at their leisure. “Hey, they shot my buddy, let’s cancel our approach on Saddam/Hitler, etc”. No I don’t recall this when I signed up or when my dad served Desert Storm. Sorry Clark, not even close.
In fact, when my best friend gave of his time simply do his best for our country and go into the rubble at 9/11 and gain the blessed after effects because he put his life on the line I don’t recall him saying he saw NFL athletes digging alongside him.
So when a blue-collar group of guys gets together to play church softball or gather to interact in intramural sports they have never seen anyone have a heart attack? They stopped playing their games? 90% of the time they keep playing the tournament after their buddy just got cpr. What about when the bull Rider gets gored to death, they probably stop the event? That boxer who knocks someone out must cry following the response to helping his foe off the mat?
The point is tragedy happens and no they aren’t on the same level as those who put their lives on the line as I have described, those who go to work the next day after losing someone though they did their best to rescue a stranger from death.
Fallout from the game has now been made clear. Bengals get the shaft even though they had nothing to do with the NFL’s choice to cancel the game and left it up to the Bills, rightly so. Monday night overall I have no problem with, under the circumstances I don’t think the game of the year would have matched my kids t-ball games for quality. I think everything occurred for the best.
In what blue-collar world, however, for us lesser blue collar individuals who work at Corrections, Education, military, etc, would the game not have been considered a forfeit? The Bills said they didn’t want to play. The situation is tragic, so is this now the precedent? I have no doubt we will be seeing more of this! Athletes are dropping around the world, the players crying is for their friend, but they also know the risks their league put them in by essentially mandating their players to get the ‘vax.’ If this happened anywhere else we would forfeit the game and move on. No team would be ‘penalized’ other than the Bills. Icing on the cake is expressed by Taylor in his response to the league not following it’s own rules. Seems like when players don’t follow the rules the players get fined, I think it’s the NFL’s turn to get fined for the decisions they came up with days after the incident when they had a contingency plan already in place. As it is, the nation will rally around the Bills and I am guessing we haven’t seen the end of this scenario in the NFL.
In an effort to be transparent, I root for the Bengals (1A) and the Chiefs (1B).
Guarantee - the Bills will win the super bowl. It's a done deal. For Damar.