More Than One Knee to a Protest

In Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky, where schoolteachers walked out or threatened to walk out (and as a retired college instructor, I support them 100 percent), just wondering, would high school athletics have been threatened too?

In Chicago, where I reside, no school, no sports. No sports, no athletes competing, no chances to show their wares to colleges interested in offering scholarships or pro teams in sports like baseball and hockey, where kids do go directly to the pros, at least at some level, right out of high school (unless your name is Ball, and then you go directly to jail, purgatory or Vermont Avenue on a Monopoly board.

Nothing is more important than educating – and protecting the safety of – our kids. Athletics are part of that educational experience. Let’s protect it and let’s pay our teachers what they deserve so the athletes can display what they can do too. Teachers are educators, not gun-toting security guards.

SEAHAWK SQUAT: Apparently, Colin Kaepernick had been talking with the Seattle Seahawks about making a comeback into the league, likely as Russell Wilson’s backup and, who knows, as a secret weapon in “wildcat” and other special formations.

It wasn’t all that long ago that owners knelt with their players in support of their protest against unfair treatment for all in America. It wasn't all that long ago an owner called the players "inmates." This whole thing is confusing, confounding and ridiculous.

Now, with Donald Trump riling up fans over this, with games taking longer, delayed by prolonged replay reviews, with TV ratings eroding a bit and the game overexposed on TV from Thursdays to Mondays, with the occasional late-season Saturday, and let's not leave out fears of concussion concerns, aha - only now are the owners looking the other way.

As long as the form of protest is passive and peaceful, there is no problem, and when the game starts, it’s forgotten already.

We support our teachers and their protests for more pay, better materials and better venues in which to educate our kids. Some of those kids are playing in the NFL now.

Unfortunately, one of them is Reuben Foster. Why aren’t you, Donald Trump, declaring he should be “fired?”

Because you should be.

NFL S_it Job

Remember when football players could put their heads down and ram into someone? Can’t do that anymore. In fact, can’t hit anyone leading with your helmet.

So does that mean if someone is about to hit you, you can’t put your head down to protect yourself with your helmet?

This new no-leading-with-the-helmet rule is going to be interesting to watch (no it isn’t) and definitely interesting to enforce (yes it is).

Players have consistently said they’d rather be hit high (even around the head) than low (around the career-ending knee injury).

So where are you supposed to hit someone? Where can you hit someone?

Ribs? Stomach? Thighs? Calves?

Crack. Strain. Bruise. Muscle pull.

There is no good place to hit someone anymore because anyplace you get hit is injury prone, head to toe. Let alone a penalty.

But for the NFL, billion-dollar concussion lawsuits are less to their liking than player careers ending after just a few years, which is the average length of a career anyway. 

In other words, anytime Tom Brady gets hits someplace on his body where you can’t take something and stick it after folding it five ways and sideways (with all due respect to the original Bad News Bears movie), then we get a rule that restricts player movement, hitting, spitting, celebrating, thinking and practicing and/or any combinations thereof.

According to Sports Illustrated, and we paraphrase here to save space, with the new rules on hits to the head, defenses would be cited for roughing-the-passer penalties alone 37 more times than the prior season. And personal fouls would go up by at least 32 flags, a pace of 256 for the season, or 18 more than the prior year.

That, my friends, is from an article by S.I.’s Jim Trotter, on Oct. 3, 2011, discussing new league-wide, hit-to-the-head penalties instilled that season with the comparative totals to the 2010 season.

Imagine what 2018 is going to look like now compared to 2017. Longer games, more flags, more replays, and this time, the penalty can be reviewed, which has not been allowed by the NFL to this point in its history.

Somewhere, Johnny Unitas just rolled over and Joe Namath started drinking again.

And we are headed to the National Flag Football League before too long unless someone comes up with equipment, rules, padding and officiating that cuts through all this.

QUARTERBACK SHUFFLE: I’ve heard enough. From all the experts. Mel Kiper Jr. Todd McShay. Colin Cowherd. Pete Prisco.

USC’s Sam Darnold is going to the Browns at No. 1 and if they don’t take him, they are fools. The Giants need to take Josh Rosen from UCLA, who outplayed Darnold in defeat when USC beat UCLA. He is an Eli Manning prototype with a fantastically accurate arm, best I saw last year. Let Denver and Buffalo fight it out for draft position for Josh Allen after that. Mason Rudolph and Luke Falk are out there too. And remember folks, Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick.

If the Giants trade the pick, they will get numerous other picks with which they will select three offensive linemen who will be out of the league by 2021, three defensive linemen who will be out of the league by 2022 and two defensive backs who will unfortunately still be with them in 2023.

The Packers took Aaron Rodgers, groomed him three years and then let Brett Favre go and Rodgers has worked out – well, pretty OK, ya’ think?

Hey Giants, do the same with Rosen.

Chicago's Very Own - Sinclair Sports

With Sinclair about to prospectively take over Chicago's Very Own WGN, we're wondering if the impact of its editorial declaration of war on "fake news" will have any impact on sports coverage. Let's take a peek ahead.

And now, back to the Crosstown Classic...

Sunday, May 13, at Wrigley Field...

Jason Bennetti: Welcome back to Wrigley, where the fake-news guys covering Chicago baseball are getting their lunch eaten by the Chicago White Sox this season, and in this series.

Steve Stone: Uh, Jason...

Jason: Steve, hold your water. Sox fans have been hearing it for years, since Cheatin' Theo got into town, using all those phony analytics and fixing all those games so the Cubs could break their curse.

Steve: Jason, just a second...

Jason: Steve, no, just a minute. We've waited years for this. Now we're finally seeing our building, not rebuilding as the fake media have cast it, finally pay off, and the fake-news boys over there in the press box and in the broadcast booth next door to us know how it feels.

Steve: J-A-S-O-N! We're not on Sinclair - uh, WGN today. We're on NBC Sports Chicago. They're on Unclear - uh, Sinclair today.

Jason: Oh...

...meanwhile, in the Cubs broadcast booth...

Len Kasper: Are you listening to those idiots on the "fake news" telecast talk about the "fake news" that we're supposedly doing?

Jim DeShaies: Uh, Len, we are.

Len: Oh yeah, that's right. But only until tomorrow, Jim, only until tomorrow.

Jim: Like a Jon Lester fastball, tomorrow can never come fast enough.

Len: Damn, so that pitch we said Rizzo struck out on was only an 88 mile-per-hour change-up and not a 95 mile-per-hour heater?

Jim: Yup.

Len: Are we even on-air now? Thought they were making a pitching change.

Jim: Yes, and yes.

Len: Damn.

...meanwhile, back in the White Sox booth...

Jason: So, you're saying, we're real news today. And they're fake news tomorrow?

Steve: Who cares? Our next game is against Pittsburgh.

Jason: Damn Pirates. They are such fake contenders.

Steve: J-A-S-O-N!!! Damn, where's Swirsky when I need him?

Don't Worry, Mexico Will Pay for It

Keep wondering, what else is Mexico going to pay for, besides the wall?

The NFL wants to play a preseason game in Mexico City. Who’s going to pay for it?

• ·        Mexico.

The NFL wants to play one, maybe two or more regular-season games in Mexico City. Who’s going to pay for it?

• ·        Mexico.

The NFL wants Pink Floyd to perform “The Wall,” (even though those guys hate each other) at halftime of next year’s Super Bowl (in Mexico?). Who’s going to pay for the performance of “The Wall?”

• ·        Who do you think?

The Steelers want to rebuild a likeness of their “Steel Curtain” championship defenses and get back to the Super Bowl. Who’s going to pay to rebuild that Hall-of-Fame wall?

• ·        Mexico?

Donald Trump was in San Diego last week, examining prototypes for the ‘Wall’ to keep what he called those drug-dealing, murderous rapists out of the United States.

• ·        No wonder the Chargers moved all the way up north to Los Angeles.

In Major League Baseball, it’s guys like Fabricio Macias, who are the future of and carry the burden of the past hitters of all those homers for fans everywhere. So who should be paying their salaries?

• ·        You had to ask?

And if Pink Floyd won’t regroup to play “The Wall” at the Super Bowl, how about getting Santana and his band to perform at halftime of SB LIII? They are touring this year.

• ·        And get you know who to pay for it.

The point is, it’s time for Donald Trump to stop talking about building a wall that no one is going to pay for, not even we taxpayers, let alone Mexico. 

The NFL could probably afford to pay cash and build the wall Trump has proposed, and promised, but the optics of that wouldn’t play well for a league that has promoted heavily in and directly to an audience in Mexico.

Let’s knock down the wall separating the quality of Mexican futbol from American futbol. And let’s forget about the wall Trump wanted Mexico to pay for and have a look at the other side of the wall Robert Mueller is trying to break through.

Let’s stop insulting Mexicans and start embracing all the immigrants who built the foundation upon which our country rests. I don’t remember that including a wall to keep anybody out.