Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Sullied showcase

 This is shaping up to be a hell of a week for spin cycles, if you're the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League. It's their signature event -- The Super Bowl! Greatest occurrence in the entire  history of humankind occurrences! -- and the commissioner, Roger the Previous Hammer Goodell, will deliver his usual glowing speech about how AWESOME the NFL is and what TERRIFIC strides they've made in diversity and keeping women away from Daniel Snyder and such.

Somehow I doubt Brian Flores's name will come up.

Or that of Alvin Kamara, the Saints' Pro Bowl running back, caught on video with his entourage beating a man within an inch of his life in Las Vegas on Pro Bowl weekend.

Or that of Dennis Allen. which kind of goes back to Brian Flores.

Flores, see, is the black former coach of the Miami Dolphins who's filed a discrimination suit against Goodell's wondrous league and its wondrous diversity initiatives.

Allen is the Saints' white defensive coordinator, whom the Saints just promoted to head coach.

It will be Allen's second stint as a head coach. In his first, he went 8-28 in three seasons with the Raiders. This makes him another failed/mediocre white NFL head coach to get another shot this hiring cycle, along with new Raiders coach Josh McDaniel (11-17 in two seasons with the Broncos) and maybe new Jaguars coach Doug Pederson, who won a Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2017 but was canned after going 22-25-1 thereafter.

Allen's hiring means, of eight new head coaches hired so far this cycle, seven are white. Five have no previous head coaching experience. Only Lovie Smith -- the Texans' in-house hiring -- breaks the mold. And Lovie got the Bears to their only Super Bowl in the last 36 years and went 81-63 in nine seasons in Chicago -- an achievement, considering that crash site of an organization.

Meanwhile, Kamara, one of the leading lights in Goodell's NFL, has a charge of battery resulting in substantial bodily harm hanging over him now.

"Yeah, but look at all our guys in Vegas who didn't put some dude in the hospital with an orbital fracture of his right eye," one can imagine Goodell saying.

OK. So he probably won't say that.

But there'll be some symbolic throat-clearing, I'm guessing. Let the spin begin.

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