No Gurlz Allowed

 Dumb stuff always becomes a thing when the Intertoobal poodles start yapping, and this week, I guess, the thing is about Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon. 

She's on the sidelines for every game, you see. With a clipboard. Taking notes.

Rational folks would say this just shows she's engaged in the operation of her team, which isn't a bad thing for the owner of a gazillion-dollar business. Besides, she's just there taking notes. She's not pestering the coaches or players or insisting Shane Steichen roll out the old Statue of Liberty play. So what's the problem?

Ah, but the poodles ...

Well. The most prominent among them -- the super-annoying Bill Simmons -- says it's "bonkers" Irsay-Gordon does this. He says it's "crackers," and "nuts" and a bunch of other words. He says if she were a male owner, like, say, fellow sideline stalkers Jerry Jones or Falcons owner Arthur Blank, people would be raising perdition.

This, of course, is exactly backward.

If she were a male owner taking notes on the sideline, Bill-O and the rest of the Magical Twitter/X/Instagram/Podcast-al crowd wouldn't be saying a word.

Let's take Jones, for instance. Or as everyone calls him, "Jerry."

Jerry stalks the Cowboys sideline as regularly as Irsay-Gordon, and, unlike her, he never met a camera he wouldn't chase down to put his face in front of. He's the biggest attention-hound in America. And yet when's the last time you heard Bill-O call HIM bonkers or crackers or nuts?

Hint: Never.

 "So all this much-ado is because she's a woman?" you're saying now.

Of course it's because she's a woman. What, you think the sun rises in the west now?

It's because she's a youngish woman in a world populated by mostly ancient men -- many of whom, one suspects, she's a heck of a lot smarter than. In fact the NFL, you could argue, is the foremost bastion of male hegemony in all of Spfaortsball World. If it were a treehouse, there'd be a faded No Gurlz Allowed sign hanging out front.

Faded, because its time is long past. Still hanging there, because -- Irsay-Gordon aside -- the ancient men still nostalgically cling to it.

Aided and abetted by poodles like Bill Simmons, apparently.

Geez, people. Get with the times, why doncha.