The self-harm of spite

 This morning we begin with a Woody Allen quote, or a Fielding Mellish quote if you prefer the character out of whose mouth it came, or "that one quote from 'Bananas'" if you can recall the name of the film but not the source of the quote.

In any event, to quote Allen/Mellish, what we saw in Denver yesterday was a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.

What we saw in Denver was a practice squad wide receiver trying to play quarterback in what the league insisted on calling an official NFL game.

The practice squad wide receiver was Kendall Hinton, and on the day he threw nine passes and completed three, two of them to the wrong team. He took roughly half the snaps in a 31-3 loss to the Saints. Running backs Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman took direct snaps the rest of the time, which made the Broncos' offense somewhat, um, predictable.

No doubt by now you're asking "Mr. Blob, why would the NFL allow such a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham to go on? Why wouldn't they just move the game like they've moved so many others affected by the Bastard Plague?"

For the answer, we turn to Broncos defensive back Kareem Jackson.

"I guess they felt like they had to make an example," he said, acknowledging that the flaunting of league COVID-19 protocols by the Broncos' quarterbacks was, well, kinda stupid.

If so, even more stupid was the NFL's decision to make a joke of their product, simply out of spite.

Because, look, if Jackson's right, and the league was trying to make an example of the Broncos, it's a textbook example of spitting into a hurricane. The target of your disdain might get a tad damp, but you get a faceful of expectoration.

A more thoughtful approach would have been to move the game and dole out a handful of fines, along with a stern warning that if the Broncos decided to be so cavalier about the Plague again, it could cost them draft picks. Instead ...

Instead, they handed the Saints, locked up in a fight with Tampa Bay for the NFC South title, a virtual automatic W. That couldn't have made the Buccaneers too happy, given that they were in the process of losing to the Chiefs at roughly the same time.

That's a potential two-game swing. And now the Saints are 2 1/2 games clear in the division.

In any event, NFL officials can thank God that, on Saturday night, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. fought to a "draw" in their old-dude Sorta Brawl On Geritol. 

Which meant Broncos-Saints wasn't the weekend's only farce.