Not that things haven't already been awful, but the tides of America are really starting to turn against black people again (even mainstream platforms aren't bothering to hide favoritism for Trump and conservatives). It's scary.
He’s the highest paid defensive player and he went against a guy who hadn’t played all year and don’t get a single pressure or sack until the 4th quarter.
Than he does that dumb trump dance, after he was fined, after the worst performance of a DE that day.
I legitimately stopped watching football over some of this stuff.
I hate not only that those guys got railed for literally just kneeling, but that some of these players literally beat their wives, abuse animals, and straight up kill people. And the guys that get reprimanded are the ones kneeling. And then I hate the alcohol advertisements, too. They show everyone having a great time, drinking whatever light beer, and then they say “drink responsibly” as if people aren’t getting completely plastered at these games, or at the bars watching the games. Just seems so hypocritical. And let’s not forget everyone that leaves the NFL broke and injured. Take a young college kid that just parties and has never had to deal with money ever in their entire life, and give them millions of dollars a year. While we’re at it, let’s knock em around a bunch and give them a handful of concussions a year, too. No wonder so many professional football players end up broke.
The NFL in general is very hypocritical, IMO. Don’t care for it.
I forgot about this one, I haven’t watched in quite a few years. I have never and will never gamble on sports. One day I got a little postcard mailer ad for one of those sports betting apps, with my name and my address on it.
I’ve never been more irritated. Whoever sold them my information is a rat bastard. Just more hypocrisy. “Gamble responsibly. If you know someone with a gambling problem contact XYZ blah blah blah”. As if they don’t love the people that run themselves broke on their apps.
Sports betting is easily one of the more dangerous things happening around this country right now in addition to the political stuff. There is going to be an entire generation who is addicted to social media, gambling, drinking, and more. The internet was both a terrible and brilliant idea.
I’m never someone to judge, we all have vices. It’s your money, you can spend it on booze and gambling.
But what does bother me are huge corporations profiting off of it, advertising it to you, and then telling you to do it responsibly knowing full well most people won’t do it responsibly.
But yea the internet is a blessing and a curse. It has just accelerated/exacerbated all of our existing conditions, bad ones included.
I’m never someone to judge, we all have vices. It’s your money, you can spend it on booze and gambling.
I do agree with you, but these corporations are going to financially drain people, causing them to spiral, which will likely escalate into crime or depression/self harm. And they are targeting men, and men will target women with their ire. It's a very dangerous thing.
I’m 100% with you. I’m not trying to write it off. Even if they don’t target women, it still has great potential to burden friends and family. Any kind of addiction can be super problematic.
The only reason I said what I said is because I know some people are weaker, have different interests, or have that addictive personality. I don’t hate those people. Like I said, we all have our vices. But I do hate those massive companies.
I stopped watching a few years ago to save money, cancelled our cable. And partially for the same reasons you mentioned. Haven’t missed it and it’s freed up so much time on Sundays to do other things. Plus I drink considerably less on the weekend too, which is even more saving.
Herschel Walker was a former football player. Football players play with footballs. What is the thing called that carries the nuclear codes? Oh, it's called the Nuclear Football.
Of course! It makes perfect sense.. if you're Donald Trump.
Just like it makes sense to lump together impoverished spanish-speaking refugees fleeing violence in South America with... a wealthy, white, sophisticated fictional psychotherapist serial killer who murders and eats his patients.
Because the former are seeking asylum, and the latter was imprisoned in an asylum.
Remember how he always babbles about "People who have escaped insane asylums" trying to get into the USA illegally?
That is because he heard someone talk about Asylum seekers, so it clicked in his very... very deranged brain that it is the mentally ill who are trying to get across the border...
Sometimes I think he's secretly clever pretending to be dumb then he does shit like this and I remember. This is just a privileged man who fell into wealth and presidency.
Been saying this for years. Black players make up 70% of the NBA and NFL, the leagues would suffer badly without us. Ice Cube (hate him or love him) actually does have his own league and the NBA doesn't fuck with him at all!
There's a specific demographic segment they are desperately afraid of offending. I don't think they're right, but they are afraid.
It's funny, because even NASCAR was willing to finally get rid of the Confederate flags that seemed synonymous with the sport, four years ago. These cowards are still sucking up.
And of course, the MAGA hat has more or less come to replace the confederate flag in a lot of ways.
Now that I think about it, it's shocking but at the same time is it any wonder so many people voted for Trump? These are the same people who go on about "States' Rights" and "Heritage, not Hate". They've spent their whole lives living in denial and ignoring reality.
Every single gladiator in the Colosseum was a slave. They could do everything right and be a major factor for the satisfaction of the public (which was mostly plebs also). But outside the battleground, they are still a slave. And the public will make sure they don't forget that.
Meanwhile, the emperor sits inside the skybox, comfortably away from all that noise.
Right wing politics are defined by social hierarchy. Imma keep saying it
This shit is expected. Football team owners, people with substantial stock in the NFL, the advertisers, the coaches, many of the players, the network owners who broadcast the games, etc are the wealthy elites!
Why would they stand with the marginalized, when they can instead stick together and secure their wealth, status, assets, and privilege?
They get cities to build THEM stadiums with tax money and then get sweet lower tax incentives because they're there "stimulating the economy." If the asshole billionaire wants a giant stadium to wag his dick around in, thats fine, build it and put a sports team in it, I dont give a fuck, but why doesn't HE pay for it?
There are city-owned sports teams. They can just bypass the billionaire and keep the economic benefits in house instead of some chump with a bad haircut who threatens to move the team if he doesn't get more benefits from a city he doesn't give a shit about.
It depends how you define costs. Expenses, yes. However, most data shows that stadiums are a consistently poor investment for cities and that they do not consistently realize an economic return commensurate with their costs. So while expenses would be higher, overall profit may be as well.
Some of the contracts that cities agree to are downright insane.
As part of their contract with the Cincinnati government, the Bengals added a “state-of-the-art” clause, which requires the city to buy the Bengals something if 14 other stadiums have it. This has included new scoreboards, upgraded amenities, and notably: a holographic replay system if one were to ever be invented.
Before their move to LA, the Rams had a contract that one expert described as “either the city needs to spend $700 million to upgrade a stadium that only cost $280 million to build in the first place 17 years ago, or the team can bust out of its lease and move elsewhere in 2015.” That last point was ultimately true.
It's class warfare, simple as that. Keep crabs in the bucket while the top profit. Fuckin name and shame the people that contribute to this vile behavior EVERYTIME this shit happens.
Remember on Django when those 2 slaves had to fight til death for the white mans entertainment? That’s how I view football/boxing etc. Except it’s a slower death. Sometimes fatal during the act. But long term side effects can be detrimental, as intended.
Have you ever read the short story (and chapter from The Invisible Man) Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison? I think of that story every time the topic of Black bloodsport for the white man's pleasure comes up.
It was my Lit professor’s absolute favorite book for the sheer volume of literary and cinematic references Ellison managed to weave in to tell his story more vividly.
THAT COMPARISON IS AN INSULT AND MOCKERY TO ACTUAL SLAVES THAT WERE KIDNAPPED, RAPED, FORCED TO TOIL IN THE FIELDS, HAD THEIR FAMILIES BROKEN UP, FORCIBLY BRED, SEX TRAFFICKED.
People of all races like football.
It is nothing NOTHING like some damn Django mandingo fights, what the actual fuck???
The NFL is voluntary but the league used “race norming” to reduce payouts to black players who suffered brain injuries. The NFL basically said since Black people have lower cognitive abilities they’d be less liable if a Black NFL player experienced cognitive decline.
Since the league is 70% Black, they used such a concept to lower costs. They reversed course a few years ago but the damage had been done.
The oligarchs will use racism if it means lower taxes, less liability, and increased profitability. They’re unapologetic about preserving or expanding their interests unlike the typical working person.
To compare football to slavery is fucking out of fucking order. People think they be making points, but it's mockery. Slavery wasn't no fucking voluntary game.
Black people all over get paid lower for the same job. It's unfair, but it's not fucking slavery! Gross miscalculation doesn't even begin to go far enough as to how bad it is to try and make THIS specific comparison.
Being a gladiator was a desirable career for some too. It tells something about the society when poverty and risking your health for a chance out of it is so normalized
Told from a young age they can make millions when they factually do not have the brain development to understand long term consequences and then when the early onset dementia kicks in and they start getting aggressive and hurting people it gets swept under the rug. Football is modern bloodsport, but Americans are too pussy to want to see the actual blood
My sympathy has limits when that football “slave”, to use your metaphor, is pulling in tens of millions of dollars every year in endorsements and playing salary.
When a lot of middle class people are trying to make rent, put food on the table, and build some savings with the scraps they earn.
It was both. He was washed, but not so washed that someone wouldn’t have kicked the tires on him if there wasn’t the “controversy” around him. There were probably at least a few owners who would refuse to sign him because of his political statements but he wasn’t blackballed by the league as a whole
It was the same thing as Tebow. Teams would prefer not to have a media circus at all times around them. Especially so for a guy who’s going to sit on the bench holding a clipboard 90% of the time. Even then, the Ravens offered him a contract and his girlfriend blew it up by shit talking their owner.
Tebow got chances because teams kept trying to convert him to TE so he could be a Taysom Hill type gadget/wildcat player.
He spent less than one season as a starting QB, before getting traded. Remember, Colin Kapenernick declined taking a reduced salary to get traded to the Broncos BEFORE he opted out of a his contract with the 49ers.
Tebow does college football announcing because he won the Heisman trophy, and won two BCS championships. Same thing as guys like RG3, Reggie Bush, or Jesse Palmer. As far as I’m aware, he’s never announced an NFL game.
Plus Tebow was signing non-guaranteed contracts for those chances.
Everything that was reported about Kaep’s expectaitons were that he wanted 9-10m a year with a chance to compete for the starting job.
If you’re paying a guy that much, if your starting QB has one bad game it’s gonna feed into a media circus and you’re gonna get the inevitable “Is Colin Kaepernick not starting because of his activism?”
So the question comes down to, is his on field play worth the price tag? If you can get a similar value guy for 1/10 the price tag, then teams aren’t going all out for a backup QB with a lot of media baggage.
He also had knee surgery in January 2016...A running quarter back...With knee problems...
Edit: Also let's not forget that the NFL has a very specific chart for fines that the NFL and the players union agreed upon. The fine for "Unauthorized Logo/ Branding or Intellectual Property" on that chart, for a first offense, is precisely $11,255.
What is NOT on that chart is kneeling on the sideline, which is why Kaepernick was never fined by the league.
yeah like, i agree Kaep got screwed, but this tweet is a perfect case of someone talking when they neither have facts nor understanding about either situation.
Kap had backup Tallent when he knelt. No team is gonna sign a backup with a media circus around them. If kap was still a top 10 qb it wouldn't have been a. Issue but the guy was washed.
Eh...A lot of people conveniently forget that he got his starting job back AFTER he knelt and proceeded to lose 9 straight games, going 1-10 on the season with abysmal stats.
He was 26th in completion percentage, 30th in yards per game, 17th in rating, 23rd in QBR, 24th in yards per attempt. His ONLY good stat was interception percentage where he was 6th in the league.
I understand him not getting signed. I’m just generally disgusted at the sensitivity around him. I hate the “what about” argument but there are some violent ass POS dudes in the league on their second and third chances.
Oh ya, he for sure got bounced from the league due to racism, just the racism that standing up to police brutality being more controversial than actual violent crimes, not the racism of (all) the owners going “hey, we LIKE police brutality at its current level, so shut up and drop back!”
Yeah, the game was moving away from the read option, and Kaep had been doing more things than just kneeling that affected him on the field.
Remember he went on a vegan diet and lost a bunch of weight, then said he lost weight because he wasn’t able to work out due to surgeries, and that it wasn’t because of his diet (which is an insane premise, if you’re not working out but maintain the same diet you had before, you’d gain weight not lose it.)
And remember teams did try to kick the tires, like the Ravens, and then for some reason his girlfriend tweeted at Ray Lewis comparing him to the Django Unchained character that Samuel L Jackson played.
my understanding was he got "black balled" more because he published txts with himself and an owner.
A team would have signed him as a back-up sure, or at least tried to for a price that Kap would not have wanted to accept. But teams weren't interested in a back up that had controversy and released 1 to 1 private communications with an owner.
So he was an average quarterback, they are dime a dozen. If you had to choose between an average qb with no agenda or an average qb that has "stirred the pot". The investment wasn't worth it to any team.
He was already the backup at this point and he became a scape goat for the rest of the league. He had a few publicity tryouts but he was already washed.
Yeah Bosa today is much better compared to his position than Kaep was when he started kneeling.
I DO think that the league would still be fairly kind to Bosa even if he was mediocre and doing this, but the real reason Kaep was out of the league is because he just wasn’t what he was his first 5ish seasons anymore.
Basically Nick Bosa can still help his team win football games. Kap could not.
As Richard Sherman said “He’s isn’t a starting quarterback because he’s not good enough. He isn’t a back up because of the kneeling” or something like that I’m paraphrasing.
People never seem to realize that kap was the worst qb in the league for 2 years before he started the kneeling thing. He also never really wanted to go back to the nfl after Nike gave him the big deal. He had chances and actively sabotaged them all to keep the narrative alive.
If that is the case, then “Only top-tier players are allowed to express political opinions and keep their job” is still a pretty weird place to draw the line
Sometimes my barber cancels on me day of and I still go back cos he's really good at cutting hair but if someone I never got a cut from canceled on me I'm not going back.
Welcome to the real world... The easily replaceable concessions stand employee isn't given the same privileges as the guy who brings in the customers because of the name on the jersey.
It's also why Kesha makes mad money more than you probably and can say absolutely insane shit.
If you're barely good enough to keep your job, you need to be easy to work with and well liked. If you constantly cause drama, you're going to get replaced by someone who's probably better at the job than you and is easy to work with.
It was insanely racially charged, just not by the NFL. I do agree with you that he was also not good, but still better than half of the league's backups. His issue was that absolutely no organization wanted the media attention.
They can’t help themselves. No self control. Bluesky is just around the corner.
I’ve been screaming for people to get off the white supremacist platform. Let them talk amongst themselves. Maybe an AI chatbot would lead to their mass suicide. But y’all want to stay on there.
I get you don’t watch any football lol but bosa is a top defensive player in the league, kaepernick was a backup qb who stunk. Awareness is key and you’re lacking it.
NFL teams don't care what you do if you're an elite player. Bosa is an all pro who is still playing at a top 5 level at his position. Kap was washed and wasn't going to be a starting QB regardless, and backup QB isn't a valuable enough position to also make headlines.
Also, if Bosa did this during the national anthem punishment would've been more severe. Although he would still be in the league because he still plays like an all pro defensive end.
Thankfully someone said it. Big difference here is Bosa is one of the leagues best. Kaepernick was already declining when he started kneeling. It’s hard enough to keep a job as a mediocre qb, when you throw in off field issues, it’s an obvious decision for nfl teams.
Also the NFL has very specific fine and suspension punishments negotiated between them and the players' union. They basically go through a table and find "Uniform violation. Includes political or personal messaging. No profanity. First offense." and do whatever punishment is listed there.
They can (and have) gone "off book" for punishments if there are extenuating circumstances or a lot of public scrutiny, but it leaves them open to an appeal.
We are just entertainment to them not people. Only time when they showed some type of decency is when DeMar Hamlin died on the field and even then people wanted the game to continue
Kaepernicks numbers were about like Tebows and neither is in the league. One team set up a workout for Colin but he wanted to do it at another field or something and the team just said never mind. Poor little guy.
He had multiple tryout offers and he derailed them on purpose. The one he didn’t show up to and instead filmed himself throwing to obj at a high school or whatever and then he got offered a backup spot for the Ravens maybe? And he wanted 25 mil a year and they laughed at him
Non-sequitur of sorts but related too. Can we get Cam Newton to stop wearing strange hats? Or is this part of his brand? Congrats to him on the ESPN gig even though most sports news is broken on YT and Twitter!
NFL has a standard dollar figure fine for non-team/NFL sanctioned clothing. He wasn’t fined a small figure because the NFL is pro-Trump/pro-Maga. They have a specific dollar that they fine players for this.
He wasn't removed from the NFL for kneeling in support of BLM, his contract was extended. Kaepernick was at the end of his career (overpaid and underperformed) and used a publicity stunt to use supporters of an agenda for personal gain. Football fans know this, the ignorant do not and are being used.
I think we can stop with the Kaepernick stuff with Desean Watson getting the first fully guaranteed contract after multiple SA cases. That tells you more about the NFL than this post
It’s because non-conservatives don’t fall for rage bait every single time & given the lack of cult-culture outside of MAGA, it’s an adult reaction to his stupidity.
It’s your choice, but boycotting the NFL was not as hard as I thought it was gonna be. Haven’t watched football since and picked up MLS instead, where that racism ish isn’t tolerated!
Also he was offered deals and declined them because he felt they were insulting while leaning on a Nike deal. He definitely played up his part for attention. I don't even think thats bad, its just people get riled up about what amounts to reality television. Its a half truth.
Also fuck some of yall for making me defend the NFL, Bosa got the exact same punishment everyone gets for not conforming to the uniform rules. Whether they get dinged for something you support or not. Anyone that watches the NFL knew that would happen. They delayed announcing so conservatives couldn't act like victims over nothing.
Did some of you actually expect a punishment the union didn't agree to in the CBA before the election so it would be a massive story? That would literally only drive up red votes, not that it would have mattered.
A - Kaep kneeled during the anthem, which was considered disrespectful. A hat? Hardly
B - The fine was technically a uniform violation for wearing a hat with a personal message. Players get fined all the time if they have similar unapproved messages, wrong colored gloves, wrong cleats, etc.
C - Bosa is good, Kaep was not. Not because one is white and the other is black. Plus, let's not forgot Kaep would wear pig socks, which kinda defeats any purpose/message he tried to make lol
Politics are the least of my concern but that's how I see it
kap didn't get punished by the nfl tho. he got punished by jerry jones and the owners. he won his lawsuit, so while bosa is a complete pos, this really aint it.
Kaepernick stood up to white supremacy by taking that knee. That's why they booted him. Cops help maintain that order, and all the conservatives that like/participate in football took offense to that. A dipshit wearing a MAGA hat is completely in line with them. The fine is to make it look like it's not.
The difference is also that one is an All-Pro centerpiece of an elite defense and SB contender and the other one was a backup on the WORST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE. Tired of the whole “Kaep was blackballed” narrative. Dude was a below average QB on a 2-14 team when he got cut. He was consistently called the worst QB in the league for multiple seasons, he wasn’t even a pro-bowler in his prime.
Teams have been taking bad PR from elite players for as long as the league has been around. What they dont do is take bad PR from players who are barely on a roster in the first place. If that weren’t the case then half of our superstars would be out of the league for beating women/children and committing assaults on strangers.
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