I remember the day Dan Wheldon died.
He hung it on the fence in a massive crash 12 laps into an IndyCar event at Las Vegas, and died of massive head trauma. I tuned in after they'd red-flagged the race to clean up the mess, and the first thing I heard was Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever talking about Wheldon in that certain way you talk about a guy when it's very, very bad. And that's when I knew.
Then I saw Tony Kanaan sitting on the pit wall crying, and that's when I really knew.
"Oh, my God," I said to my wife, Julie. "Oh, my God he's dead."
Then I got up and went into the den and wrote a column about Wheldon, whom I'd interviewed probably a dozen times. And I said IndyCar was unbelievably irresponsible for putting Vegas on the schedule to start with, because the venue was too fast and too tight for Indy cars -- especially when you put 34 of them on it, which for some unfathomable reason IndyCar decided to do that day.
That decision got Dan Wheldon killed. And I'll give IndyCar this much: It hasn't raced at Vegas since.
And now a lot of people are saying they shouldn't be racing at Pocono anymore, not after Justin Wilson was killed there and Robert Wickens was paralyzed there and a whole pile of cars got turned into scrap on the very first lap of the ABC Supply 500 Sunday.
I suppose I ought to be one of those people, given what I wrote about Vegas after Wheldon died. But I'm not.
What I am is a guy who thinks IndyCar should demand Pocono get its, um, business together before it does go back there again.
Look. Pocono is different from Vegas because IndyCar first started racing there in the 1970s, and it is no more inherently perilous now than it's ever been. Wilson's death, for instance, would have happened anywhere; he died because Sage Karam hit a nosecone lying in the racing line and flipped it in the air, and it hit Wilson in the head. An utter, tragic fluke.
But then Wickens got up in the fence last year, and he's in a wheelchair now. And then there was Sunday's crash, which began with Takuma Sato trying to do something he shouldn't have, particularly on the first lap, and ended with him upside down. Nearby, James Hinchcliffe and Alexander Rossi were twisted together. Farther down the track was Felix Rosenqvuist -- who, like Wickens a year ago, got up in the catch fence.
Want to know how the geniuses at Pocono repaired the damage to that fence Sunday?
Video evidence suggests they filled the hole in it with an old gate that apparently was just lying around somewhere. And they secured it with zip ties.
You'd hate to see IndyCar permanently abandon one of its long-time signature venues. But zip ties?
That simply won't stand. Or shouldn't.
And so IndyCar should consider bailing on Pocono not because it's too dangerous; it is and always has been a tricky place, with that tunnel turn and the odd tri-oval configuration. And it's not like IndyCar hasn't raced at tricky, dangerous places before. Ask some of the old-timers about Langhorne, for instance.
No. IndyCar should bail on Pocono, at least for now, because it's incredibly poorly managed.
That much it owes its drivers. And its fans, scarce though they may be these days.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Monday, August 19, 2019
Eclipse
Years back, in the before time, it was appointment viewing for me. Come a certain Saturday night in August, I'd flip on the TV, settle onto the couch, and watch the boys go around and around that infernal bullring. Or I'd head out to a favorite sports bar, knowing it would be on every big screen.
Around and around they'd go. Sometimes they'd run into each other. Sometimes they'd shake their fists and cuss after running into each other. Once one of them actually pulled an automotive head butt on the last lap, punting the winning driver sideways beneath the checkers.
The headbutt-er was Dale Earnhardt. The headbutt-ee was Terry Labonte. And it was pretty much the definitive Bristol night race moment.
Now?
Now I had to look up who won the Bristol night race on Sunday morning, on account of I forgot about it. Pretty much the way I forget about NASCAR as a whole five minutes after the checkers fly in the Daytona 500.
This may be just me, mind you. I was never more than a cursory NASCAR fan to begin with; IndyCar stole my heart as a kid, and it still owns it. It's better racing, for one thing. It's better racing even when Takuma Sato goes full nitwit and wrecks a whole pile of drivers on the first lap of a 500-mile race, the way he did Sunday at Pocono.
IndyCar was already thinking of dumping Pocono, despite the fact it's one of IndyCar's oldest venues. This likely will only push the series closer to doing that -- even though being an idiot, the way Sato was Sunday, is not a condition that's ever been tied to geography.
But I digress.
("Yes, you are," you're saying. "Constantly.")
The topic here is not IndyCar, but NASCAR, and in particular the Bristol night race. It indeed might be just me, forgetting about it, but it might not. Apparently it's disappeared from a lot of radars in the 15 or 20 years.
Word on the street is NASCAR's having a hard time selling it out these days, just like NASCAR is having a hard time selling out every Cup event. Swaths of empty seats dot every race on the schedule now. The Brickyard 400, once one of the NASCAR crown jewels, has gone from crowds of 250,000 to maybe 50,000 and a whole lot of crickets. And where once the Bristol night race was the toughest ticket in American motorsports ...
Well. Not so much now. It's not even appointment viewing for some of us anymore.
Which is why it was Sunday morning before I found out Denny Hamlin won the Bristol night race Saturday, passing Matt DiBenedetto with a handful of laps remaining just when it looked as if DiBenedetto, who found out earlier in the week he was losing his ride, was about to notch his first Cup win.
Hamlin apologized to him for that afterward. There is no record of Earnhardt doing the same after head-butting Labonte across the finish line on that night years ago.
Hmm. Maybe Bristol needs more of that. A thought.
Around and around they'd go. Sometimes they'd run into each other. Sometimes they'd shake their fists and cuss after running into each other. Once one of them actually pulled an automotive head butt on the last lap, punting the winning driver sideways beneath the checkers.
The headbutt-er was Dale Earnhardt. The headbutt-ee was Terry Labonte. And it was pretty much the definitive Bristol night race moment.
Now?
Now I had to look up who won the Bristol night race on Sunday morning, on account of I forgot about it. Pretty much the way I forget about NASCAR as a whole five minutes after the checkers fly in the Daytona 500.
This may be just me, mind you. I was never more than a cursory NASCAR fan to begin with; IndyCar stole my heart as a kid, and it still owns it. It's better racing, for one thing. It's better racing even when Takuma Sato goes full nitwit and wrecks a whole pile of drivers on the first lap of a 500-mile race, the way he did Sunday at Pocono.
IndyCar was already thinking of dumping Pocono, despite the fact it's one of IndyCar's oldest venues. This likely will only push the series closer to doing that -- even though being an idiot, the way Sato was Sunday, is not a condition that's ever been tied to geography.
But I digress.
("Yes, you are," you're saying. "Constantly.")
The topic here is not IndyCar, but NASCAR, and in particular the Bristol night race. It indeed might be just me, forgetting about it, but it might not. Apparently it's disappeared from a lot of radars in the 15 or 20 years.
Word on the street is NASCAR's having a hard time selling it out these days, just like NASCAR is having a hard time selling out every Cup event. Swaths of empty seats dot every race on the schedule now. The Brickyard 400, once one of the NASCAR crown jewels, has gone from crowds of 250,000 to maybe 50,000 and a whole lot of crickets. And where once the Bristol night race was the toughest ticket in American motorsports ...
Well. Not so much now. It's not even appointment viewing for some of us anymore.
Which is why it was Sunday morning before I found out Denny Hamlin won the Bristol night race Saturday, passing Matt DiBenedetto with a handful of laps remaining just when it looked as if DiBenedetto, who found out earlier in the week he was losing his ride, was about to notch his first Cup win.
Hamlin apologized to him for that afterward. There is no record of Earnhardt doing the same after head-butting Labonte across the finish line on that night years ago.
Hmm. Maybe Bristol needs more of that. A thought.
For sale
Everyone has a price.
You hate that, right?
You hate it for its smugness, its arrogance, its presumption that, in America, everything and everyone is for sale. The Man Who Couldn't Be Bought? Why, that's a child's myth, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Save it for Hollywood, bud.
No, in the real world -- the world of grownups and their alleged grownup grasp of What's Important -- everything's just a haggle over price. Everyone's got one, which is why selling out one's principles isn't a character flaw. It's just bidness.
Perhaps Jay-Z can find some comfort in that.
Once upon a time, see, Jay-Z did the John Carlos/Tommie Smith thing to the Nashunal Foot-ball League, saying he'd never do their Super Bowl halftime show as long as the Shield was blackballing Colin Kaepernick for peacefully protesting racial injustice. Kaepernick's preferred method for doing that -- kneeling silently during the national anthem -- ran directly counter to the NFL's secular worship of the anthem and the flag and the troops and 'Merica. So out he went.
This no doubt pleased the Paper Patriot in the White House, who had been actively pushing for the NFL to fire anyone who didn't show respect for the anthem/flag/troops/yada-yada in a manner the Paper Patriot deemed satisfactory. The problem for the NFL was there was a backlash -- and it was led by Jay-Z and other prospective halftime entertainers, who suddenly found their schedules full up on Super Bowl Sunday.
So, good on Jay-Z for standing up for his guy. Showed integrity, principle, all that stu--
Hey, wait a minute. What's this?
Why, look, it's Jay-Z, sitting here yukking it up with Roger Goodell, tsar of all the NFLs. This upon the news that Jay-Z's company, Roc Nation, had struck a deal with the league to serve as a liaison between the NFL and the entertainment industry that has snubbed it -- and also to facilitate the league's sudden interest in social justice initiatives, which of course has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the aforementioned snubbing.
Just like Jay-Z suddenly jumping into bed with the NFL has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Jay-Z possibly getting a stake in an NFL franchise.
Coincidences. They're a real thing, Pinocchio.
In any case, suddenly Jay-Z has gone from standing up for Kaepernick to saying "I think we're past kneeling. I think it's time for action." This of course ignores the fact Kaepernick and the other kneelers have been taking action, via numerous initiatives and charitable acts of their own.
Look. I get it. The NFL was taking a beating on this issue, so it's just smart business to co-opt one of the people administering the beating. Astute corporate entities do it all the time, because the public is notoriously indifferent to sellouts these days. Just look at what's going on in Washington, where everyone shrugs at even the most blatant conflicts of interest, treating the entire concept not as corruption but simply how governance gets done.
And so Jay-Z allowing himself to be co-opted by the NFL, for a price?
Just bidness, boys and girls. Just bidness.
You hate that, right?
You hate it for its smugness, its arrogance, its presumption that, in America, everything and everyone is for sale. The Man Who Couldn't Be Bought? Why, that's a child's myth, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Save it for Hollywood, bud.
No, in the real world -- the world of grownups and their alleged grownup grasp of What's Important -- everything's just a haggle over price. Everyone's got one, which is why selling out one's principles isn't a character flaw. It's just bidness.
Perhaps Jay-Z can find some comfort in that.
Once upon a time, see, Jay-Z did the John Carlos/Tommie Smith thing to the Nashunal Foot-ball League, saying he'd never do their Super Bowl halftime show as long as the Shield was blackballing Colin Kaepernick for peacefully protesting racial injustice. Kaepernick's preferred method for doing that -- kneeling silently during the national anthem -- ran directly counter to the NFL's secular worship of the anthem and the flag and the troops and 'Merica. So out he went.
This no doubt pleased the Paper Patriot in the White House, who had been actively pushing for the NFL to fire anyone who didn't show respect for the anthem/flag/troops/yada-yada in a manner the Paper Patriot deemed satisfactory. The problem for the NFL was there was a backlash -- and it was led by Jay-Z and other prospective halftime entertainers, who suddenly found their schedules full up on Super Bowl Sunday.
So, good on Jay-Z for standing up for his guy. Showed integrity, principle, all that stu--
Hey, wait a minute. What's this?
Why, look, it's Jay-Z, sitting here yukking it up with Roger Goodell, tsar of all the NFLs. This upon the news that Jay-Z's company, Roc Nation, had struck a deal with the league to serve as a liaison between the NFL and the entertainment industry that has snubbed it -- and also to facilitate the league's sudden interest in social justice initiatives, which of course has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the aforementioned snubbing.
Just like Jay-Z suddenly jumping into bed with the NFL has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Jay-Z possibly getting a stake in an NFL franchise.
Coincidences. They're a real thing, Pinocchio.
In any case, suddenly Jay-Z has gone from standing up for Kaepernick to saying "I think we're past kneeling. I think it's time for action." This of course ignores the fact Kaepernick and the other kneelers have been taking action, via numerous initiatives and charitable acts of their own.
Look. I get it. The NFL was taking a beating on this issue, so it's just smart business to co-opt one of the people administering the beating. Astute corporate entities do it all the time, because the public is notoriously indifferent to sellouts these days. Just look at what's going on in Washington, where everyone shrugs at even the most blatant conflicts of interest, treating the entire concept not as corruption but simply how governance gets done.
And so Jay-Z allowing himself to be co-opted by the NFL, for a price?
Just bidness, boys and girls. Just bidness.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
That's gratitude for ya
Many of you do not know who Billy Napier is, and you should not feel unschooled because you don't. That's because many of you -- the Blob might even say the vast majority of you -- are not big-time fans of University of Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football.
Billy Napier, see, is the head coach of the Ragin' Cajuns, and, according to Deadspin, he makes $850,000 a year to coach up the Ragin's. His players, of course, make nothing. They get a free education, allegedly, plus the use of school equipment and facilities, all so ULL can make millions, and pay Billy Napier his almost-a-million-dollar salary, off their labor.
Also, they can't just up and go play for another school whenever they want to, the way Billy Napier can just up and go coach another school whenever he wants to. They have to sit out a year, in most cases. Oh, and Billy Napier, and ULL, can refuse to release them if they don't like where they're trying to transfer to.
Reasonable people might regard this as indentured servitude. Or at least something that lives right down the street from it.
But you know what?
Billy Napier thinks they should be a little more grateful for that.
And so the other day he announced a new initiative for his football team. Starting this year, he said, all scholarship members of the team would be required (or at least strongly encouraged) to donate $50 to the Ragin' Cajun Athletic Foundation.
He went on to say this would be a gesture of gratitude to the university for all it does to enable the Ragin' Cajun football players to make the university a pile of money.
Some people would say this is an odd application of logic. Some people also would say it would be a more apt gesture of gratitude for Billy Napier to donate part of his salary to the workforce whose sweat equity earns it for him. But of course, in the inside-out, through-the-looking-glass world of corporate college football, that would be wrong.
So would selling your game-worn jersey to come up with the fifty bucks. Or selling whatever swag the NCAA says "student-athletes" are allowed to get if they go to a bowl game. Or trading on their status as Ragin' Cajun football players in any way, no matter how small and picayunish, even if it's just accepting a ride or a McDonald's cheeseburger from an alum.
That would be an impermissible benefit. Because, you know, no alum/professor/staff member/administrator ever gave a regular college student a ride or bought him or her lunch. Why, heavens, no.
What a racket. What an absolute, platinum-grade racket.
Billy Napier, see, is the head coach of the Ragin' Cajuns, and, according to Deadspin, he makes $850,000 a year to coach up the Ragin's. His players, of course, make nothing. They get a free education, allegedly, plus the use of school equipment and facilities, all so ULL can make millions, and pay Billy Napier his almost-a-million-dollar salary, off their labor.
Also, they can't just up and go play for another school whenever they want to, the way Billy Napier can just up and go coach another school whenever he wants to. They have to sit out a year, in most cases. Oh, and Billy Napier, and ULL, can refuse to release them if they don't like where they're trying to transfer to.
Reasonable people might regard this as indentured servitude. Or at least something that lives right down the street from it.
But you know what?
Billy Napier thinks they should be a little more grateful for that.
And so the other day he announced a new initiative for his football team. Starting this year, he said, all scholarship members of the team would be required (or at least strongly encouraged) to donate $50 to the Ragin' Cajun Athletic Foundation.
He went on to say this would be a gesture of gratitude to the university for all it does to enable the Ragin' Cajun football players to make the university a pile of money.
Some people would say this is an odd application of logic. Some people also would say it would be a more apt gesture of gratitude for Billy Napier to donate part of his salary to the workforce whose sweat equity earns it for him. But of course, in the inside-out, through-the-looking-glass world of corporate college football, that would be wrong.
So would selling your game-worn jersey to come up with the fifty bucks. Or selling whatever swag the NCAA says "student-athletes" are allowed to get if they go to a bowl game. Or trading on their status as Ragin' Cajun football players in any way, no matter how small and picayunish, even if it's just accepting a ride or a McDonald's cheeseburger from an alum.
That would be an impermissible benefit. Because, you know, no alum/professor/staff member/administrator ever gave a regular college student a ride or bought him or her lunch. Why, heavens, no.
What a racket. What an absolute, platinum-grade racket.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Trademark this
Oops. Wrong article of speech.
It's not "trademark THIS." It's "trademark THE."
Or so certain people in Columbus, Ohio, who fancy scarlet-and-gray would like to do, which seems silly, admittedly, until you stop to think about all the silly things people try to trademark. Few can top this, though: Ohio State University, which likes to call itself The Ohio State University, wants to trademark the "the."
Yes, that's right, America. Ohio State wants to own (trademark) merchandising rights to one of (trademark) most common words in (trademark) English language so it can put it on a bunch of hats and T-shirts and (trademark) rest of us can't.
This is, of course (trademark) height of absurdity. As these past few sentences demonstrate.
The Blob, being of a naturally suspicious nature anyway, suspects the origin of this traces back to the year the Dayton Flyers upset OSU in the NCAA Tournament. The Dayton Daily News celebrated this achievement with an immortal headline.
All it said was "The University of Dayton."
I'm guessing OSU's collective hindparts are still chapped about that. One of the classic trolls of all time.
Until now, of course.
No sooner had the news gotten out about this trademark silliness, see, than OSU was getting trolled from every point on the compass. Its grand plan, it seems, only made it a laughingstock -- a circumstance that no doubt especially stings given the innate nose-in-the-air snootiness it takes to label yourself The Ohio State University to begin with.
Now it doesn't take any effort at all to imagine the abuse that surely is forthcoming. The Blob envisions an immediate sprouting of "The Real The" T-shirts at The U, aka the University of Miami. And the first time the Buckeyes go back to Ann Arbor for the annual grudge match with Michigan?
Picture the entire Michigan student section wearing blue or yellow T-shirts (sorry, UM, maize is a vegetable, not a color) with one word on them: "The."
Heck. Some enterprising business major is probably already churning them out.
Oh, (trademark) possibilities ...
It's not "trademark THIS." It's "trademark THE."
Or so certain people in Columbus, Ohio, who fancy scarlet-and-gray would like to do, which seems silly, admittedly, until you stop to think about all the silly things people try to trademark. Few can top this, though: Ohio State University, which likes to call itself The Ohio State University, wants to trademark the "the."
Yes, that's right, America. Ohio State wants to own (trademark) merchandising rights to one of (trademark) most common words in (trademark) English language so it can put it on a bunch of hats and T-shirts and (trademark) rest of us can't.
This is, of course (trademark) height of absurdity. As these past few sentences demonstrate.
The Blob, being of a naturally suspicious nature anyway, suspects the origin of this traces back to the year the Dayton Flyers upset OSU in the NCAA Tournament. The Dayton Daily News celebrated this achievement with an immortal headline.
All it said was "The University of Dayton."
I'm guessing OSU's collective hindparts are still chapped about that. One of the classic trolls of all time.
Until now, of course.
No sooner had the news gotten out about this trademark silliness, see, than OSU was getting trolled from every point on the compass. Its grand plan, it seems, only made it a laughingstock -- a circumstance that no doubt especially stings given the innate nose-in-the-air snootiness it takes to label yourself The Ohio State University to begin with.
Now it doesn't take any effort at all to imagine the abuse that surely is forthcoming. The Blob envisions an immediate sprouting of "The Real The" T-shirts at The U, aka the University of Miami. And the first time the Buckeyes go back to Ann Arbor for the annual grudge match with Michigan?
Picture the entire Michigan student section wearing blue or yellow T-shirts (sorry, UM, maize is a vegetable, not a color) with one word on them: "The."
Heck. Some enterprising business major is probably already churning them out.
Oh, (trademark) possibilities ...
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Deja owie, Part Deux
Not yet, you damn fools. I said not ... yet.
Don't you dare cue up the Music of Foreboding. Don't. You. Dare.
Yes, I know this is all starting to feel very familiar, this sense of unease and, let's be honest, straight up uncertainty coming from the mouths of various Indianapolis Colts' honchos. First Andrew Luck was just dealing with an ouchie left calf, even though he'd been dealing with it for three months, and this little voice in the back of your head was whispering that maybe that wasn't, you know, a normal healing arc for an otherwise robust 20-something.
But now?
Well. Now there's this.
And from the GM himself, no less.
And suddenly, you bet, this feels like the summer of '17 all over again, even if it probably (hopefully?) isn't. But suddenly the strained left calf has morphed into a high ankle ... something, and Chris Ballard is saying he can't say for sure if Luck will be ready for the season opener against the Chargers three weeks from now, and, wait a second, how did we get to a place where we're talking about Luck missing the regular season opener?
The preseason opener, sure, that was fine. And then this week arrived and it was, well, Andrew's not going to be practicing so he'll miss preseason game two. And now ...
And now, a high ankle ... something.
To be sure, this isn't surgery on Luck's throwing arm we're talking about. It's a calf, I mean, ankle. It will heal with rest, presumably, although high ankle Somethings are notoriously slow in healing. And Luck seems to be a notoriously slow healer. And, well, this really is starting to sound familiar.
I'm sorry. What was that?
No, dammit. No. I'll tell you when.
Although God help us, it feels more and more like there's going to be a "when."
Don't you dare cue up the Music of Foreboding. Don't. You. Dare.
Yes, I know this is all starting to feel very familiar, this sense of unease and, let's be honest, straight up uncertainty coming from the mouths of various Indianapolis Colts' honchos. First Andrew Luck was just dealing with an ouchie left calf, even though he'd been dealing with it for three months, and this little voice in the back of your head was whispering that maybe that wasn't, you know, a normal healing arc for an otherwise robust 20-something.
But now?
Well. Now there's this.
And from the GM himself, no less.
And suddenly, you bet, this feels like the summer of '17 all over again, even if it probably (hopefully?) isn't. But suddenly the strained left calf has morphed into a high ankle ... something, and Chris Ballard is saying he can't say for sure if Luck will be ready for the season opener against the Chargers three weeks from now, and, wait a second, how did we get to a place where we're talking about Luck missing the regular season opener?
The preseason opener, sure, that was fine. And then this week arrived and it was, well, Andrew's not going to be practicing so he'll miss preseason game two. And now ...
And now, a high ankle ... something.
To be sure, this isn't surgery on Luck's throwing arm we're talking about. It's a calf, I mean, ankle. It will heal with rest, presumably, although high ankle Somethings are notoriously slow in healing. And Luck seems to be a notoriously slow healer. And, well, this really is starting to sound familiar.
I'm sorry. What was that?
No, dammit. No. I'll tell you when.
Although God help us, it feels more and more like there's going to be a "when."
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Head case
Wide receiver/drama king Antonio Brown is said to be reporting to training camp with the Raiders today, which is maybe good news for the Raiders but maybe not, considering the media will be all over him in a very Terrell Owens sort of way.
It might be premature to declare A.B. the new and improved T.O., but his seemingly unchecked tendency to focus attention on himself and his problems seems to be approaching T.O. levels. The Blob is famously loathe to regard off-the-field "distraction" as anything but a theoretical concept (i.e.: An excuse for on-the-field failure), but A.B. certainly comes off as distraction with a capital D.
It's why the Blob wonders if the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't secretly looking west to Oakland these days, and suppressing a smile or two. Good luck, boys. You're gonna love having A.B. around. He'll catch a lot of balls for you when he's not bitching about next to nothing and dividing your locker room.
Now, that might not be true. But it is true the Steelers are no longer lighting up social media with their family squabbles, now that A.B. is gone. "As The Wideout Turns" has closed its run. It's been remarkably quiet around their team during training camp, except for the usual mundane stuff about who's hurt and who's not and who looks like they could make the 53-man roster.
But in Oakland?
The circus is in town, baby. First, A.B. vanished from camp because of a mysterious ailment that turned out to be frozen feet. Then he started complaining about not being able to wear his outdated helmet anymore, saying if the NFL wouldn't let him wear it, he'd leave the game.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Platinum-grade drama king nonsense.
Anyway, A.B. appealed the decision, the NFL told him to pipe down and wear the approved headgear, and now Helmetgate is apparently over. Well ... except for the media questions about it, which will surely dog A.B., the Raiders and head coach Jon Gruden well into the regular season.
No horse is so dead, after all, that the NFL media can't keep beating it. It is, you see, an Issue, and there's nothing the NFL media likes more than an Issue. Even if A.B. is the only guy who made it one.
To be sure, more players than just A.B. are miffed that the NFL has banned the old headgear. But no else threatened to quit over it. No one else, as the saying goes, made a federal case out of it.
So congratulations, Coach Gruden. You've now got the best wide receiver in football.
And everything that comes with him.
It might be premature to declare A.B. the new and improved T.O., but his seemingly unchecked tendency to focus attention on himself and his problems seems to be approaching T.O. levels. The Blob is famously loathe to regard off-the-field "distraction" as anything but a theoretical concept (i.e.: An excuse for on-the-field failure), but A.B. certainly comes off as distraction with a capital D.
It's why the Blob wonders if the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't secretly looking west to Oakland these days, and suppressing a smile or two. Good luck, boys. You're gonna love having A.B. around. He'll catch a lot of balls for you when he's not bitching about next to nothing and dividing your locker room.
Now, that might not be true. But it is true the Steelers are no longer lighting up social media with their family squabbles, now that A.B. is gone. "As The Wideout Turns" has closed its run. It's been remarkably quiet around their team during training camp, except for the usual mundane stuff about who's hurt and who's not and who looks like they could make the 53-man roster.
But in Oakland?
The circus is in town, baby. First, A.B. vanished from camp because of a mysterious ailment that turned out to be frozen feet. Then he started complaining about not being able to wear his outdated helmet anymore, saying if the NFL wouldn't let him wear it, he'd leave the game.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Platinum-grade drama king nonsense.
Anyway, A.B. appealed the decision, the NFL told him to pipe down and wear the approved headgear, and now Helmetgate is apparently over. Well ... except for the media questions about it, which will surely dog A.B., the Raiders and head coach Jon Gruden well into the regular season.
No horse is so dead, after all, that the NFL media can't keep beating it. It is, you see, an Issue, and there's nothing the NFL media likes more than an Issue. Even if A.B. is the only guy who made it one.
To be sure, more players than just A.B. are miffed that the NFL has banned the old headgear. But no else threatened to quit over it. No one else, as the saying goes, made a federal case out of it.
So congratulations, Coach Gruden. You've now got the best wide receiver in football.
And everything that comes with him.
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