Maybe it was the contrast. The week before, Kansas City and Arrowhead, all those happy people 'cuein out in the parking lot (and no one 'cues like K.C. 'cues), the Chiefs fans who took an Indiana sportswriter under their wing and gave him some jovial dinner company.
The next week ...
Foxborough. Gillette. Cold, gray place; cold, gray fans that made me glad I wasn't a Colts fan rockin' that Manning jersey.
Which brings us to Minneapolis, Minn., where it's supposed to be a high of 11 degrees for the S-s-s-s-uper B-b-b-b-owl, happy news for those of us (like me) who think if Patriots fans aren't the worst, Eagles fans purportedly are. I got the Patriots experience back in 2003, following the Colts to their inevitable Gillette Stadium doom. The Eagles' experience I've only heard stories about, which means maybe they're all apocryphal and Eagles fans really aren't that nasty after all.
Although it is irrefutably true the authorities installed a holding cell in their stadium. Which suggests they're not all fine congenial folks, either.
Neither do the numerous tales that Eagles fans all but put out a contract on anyone wearing visiting Vikings purple at the NFC title game. This likely won't make the good people of Minneapolis feel any better about hosting those same fans this week, and also the Patriots fans. They don't even get the joy of watching them freeze to death in those 11-degree Minnesota winter temps, on account of the Vikings owners, the Wilfs, put a roof on that new stadium for which they squeezed the taxpayers a few years back.
No doubt Bud Grant rolled his eyes at the news, having coached the Vikes when they played outdoors, like men, instead of indoors, like pantywaists.
Roger Goodell, on the other hand, loves these new stadiums, especially the squeezing the taxpayers part. And so the Shield is coming to Minny for its big party, a reward to the Wilfs for their success in conning the citizenry with the usual new-stadium fairy tales about Creating Jobs and Boosting The Economy.
New stadiums rarely do either, of course. Neither does the Super Bowl have much sustained economic impact on the host cities, mainly because the NFL essentially gets everything for free. But it all sounds good, and so the owners and the league keep trotting it out there.
In any case, on with the show. Perhaps, if we're lucky, the two fan bases will engage in some high-spirited revelry, given their respective reputations.
After all, YouTube can always use more drunken fan fight footage.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Out, damned logo
Common sense and common decency have taken some uncommon hits in the last year, for reasons that are obvious to any American who's caught even a tiny portion of Our Only Available President's act. So it's refreshing when the two commons manage to pull off a W.
Which is to say: The Cleveland Indians are finally ditching Chief Wahoo.
This will undoubtedly provoke the usual cry of "Political correctness run amok!" from the usual suspects, who never met a racial slur or stereotype they wouldn't fervently embrace. That Chief Wahoo is an obviously racist caricature far out of its time doesn't matter to those usual suspects, given that our entire national policy openly seems to yearn for those rightfully gone times.
And yet ... it is 2018, no matter how much Our Only Available President and his constituency wishes it were not. And so Chief Wahoo belongs on history's ashheap, not on the sleeves of baseball players whose demographic is increasingly diverse.
Consider, after all, its genesis: It was created allegedly to honor Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian who played for Cleveland for three years in the late 1890s. Sockalexis' first year in Cleveland was 1897, seven years after Wounded Knee, generally regarded as the last gasp of Native American resistance to white rule. By the time Sockalexis came along, the process of herding Native American children into white schools whose purpose was to eradicate their culture was already well under way.
Chief Wahoo was a product of those times, just as this and this were a product of those times. It's safe to say not even the Usual Suspects (or at least some of them) would regard the latter two, in the America of 2018, as anything but the outrageous racial slurs they are.
So why shouldn't Chief Wahoo be regarded that way?
Which is to say: The Cleveland Indians are finally ditching Chief Wahoo.
This will undoubtedly provoke the usual cry of "Political correctness run amok!" from the usual suspects, who never met a racial slur or stereotype they wouldn't fervently embrace. That Chief Wahoo is an obviously racist caricature far out of its time doesn't matter to those usual suspects, given that our entire national policy openly seems to yearn for those rightfully gone times.
And yet ... it is 2018, no matter how much Our Only Available President and his constituency wishes it were not. And so Chief Wahoo belongs on history's ashheap, not on the sleeves of baseball players whose demographic is increasingly diverse.
Consider, after all, its genesis: It was created allegedly to honor Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian who played for Cleveland for three years in the late 1890s. Sockalexis' first year in Cleveland was 1897, seven years after Wounded Knee, generally regarded as the last gasp of Native American resistance to white rule. By the time Sockalexis came along, the process of herding Native American children into white schools whose purpose was to eradicate their culture was already well under way.
Chief Wahoo was a product of those times, just as this and this were a product of those times. It's safe to say not even the Usual Suspects (or at least some of them) would regard the latter two, in the America of 2018, as anything but the outrageous racial slurs they are.
So why shouldn't Chief Wahoo be regarded that way?
Your Super Bowl Media Day highlights
Or Media Night. Or, as the NFL is now calling it, Opening Night, seeing as how Media Day never had much to do with the media anyway, except for the fake media who showed up dressed as superheroes and the like.
(That guy, if I recall, was from Nickelodeon. No, I don't know why he was at a gang presser for a professional football game. But he wore a cape and everything, so we interviewed him. It beat watching Bill Belchick, aka Darth Hoodie, tell some Boston radio guy he would NOT be putting on the red plastic tricorn hat the radio guy was waving at him.)
(And speaking of Boston radio guys, how about the douchenozzle who called Tom Brady's 5-year-old daughter an "annoying pissant"? Who does that? And is every Boston radio guy required to have an advanced degree in douchenozzle-ry to get on the air?)
Where was I again?
Oh, yeah. Media Day/Night.
Where once upon a time the highlights included a "media personality" from Telemundo traipsing around interviewing players via hand puppet. And where someone once asked one of the Chicago Bears -- I think it was tight end Desmond Clark, though I can't recall for sure -- what position in football Chewbacca would have played.
None of that last night. Last night, the highlights were hats, and Bill Belichick smiling.
Tom Brady donned a hat that kind of looked like the hat Billy Jack wore. Belichick wore one that belonged to his father, Steve, a longtime coach at Navy.
He also smiled, which looked kind of creepy considering how rarely he smiles in public. He did this after someone told him what Brady said when asked what could make Belichick smile, and Brady said there were four things: The Navy, lacrosse, Bon Jovi and Lawrence Taylor.
Red plastic tricorn hats, notably, did not make the cut.
Of course, Belichick already had a hat. Maybe he remembered.
(That guy, if I recall, was from Nickelodeon. No, I don't know why he was at a gang presser for a professional football game. But he wore a cape and everything, so we interviewed him. It beat watching Bill Belchick, aka Darth Hoodie, tell some Boston radio guy he would NOT be putting on the red plastic tricorn hat the radio guy was waving at him.)
(And speaking of Boston radio guys, how about the douchenozzle who called Tom Brady's 5-year-old daughter an "annoying pissant"? Who does that? And is every Boston radio guy required to have an advanced degree in douchenozzle-ry to get on the air?)
Where was I again?
Oh, yeah. Media Day/Night.
Where once upon a time the highlights included a "media personality" from Telemundo traipsing around interviewing players via hand puppet. And where someone once asked one of the Chicago Bears -- I think it was tight end Desmond Clark, though I can't recall for sure -- what position in football Chewbacca would have played.
None of that last night. Last night, the highlights were hats, and Bill Belichick smiling.
Tom Brady donned a hat that kind of looked like the hat Billy Jack wore. Belichick wore one that belonged to his father, Steve, a longtime coach at Navy.
He also smiled, which looked kind of creepy considering how rarely he smiles in public. He did this after someone told him what Brady said when asked what could make Belichick smile, and Brady said there were four things: The Navy, lacrosse, Bon Jovi and Lawrence Taylor.
Red plastic tricorn hats, notably, did not make the cut.
Of course, Belichick already had a hat. Maybe he remembered.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Hey, Purdue is ... pretty good
I hate the skeptic in my head. He's always ruining every sunny day by A) pointing out the ONE cloud in the sky, or B) saying, "Yeah, but tomorrow it's supposed to rain. Or snow. Or sleet. Hell, it's Indiana, who knows?"
Anyway ... the skeptic has been watching this Purdue basketball team, which some prisoners of the moment have said is the Best Purdue Team Ever, and has been shooting down every positive the more congenial elements of the Blob sees.
Yes, Purdue has won a record 17 games in a row, but the Boilermakers aren't exactly blowing people out.
OK, so they're blowing some people out, even on the road, but those people don't count because A) they're not that good, B) all their good players are hurt, or C) they're not that good.
Purdue is 21-2 and 10-0 in the Big Ten, but they only beat Michigan by four in Mackey, and they only beat an inferior Indiana team by seven.
OK, so the Michigan team shot so well that night it would have beaten anyone else in the nation, and it's the same Michigan team that beat Michigan State by double digits in Breslin.
And, OK, so yesterday was a rivalry game, and it happened in one of the toughest places to play in America (Assembly Hall), and Indiana, when it shows up to play, is actually not terrible. When Robert Johnson and/or Josh Newkirk show up to play -- which they don't always, occasionally vanishing into the ether -- the Hoosiers can beat people. And Johnson in particular showed up to play yesterday.
Of course, Purdue still won. The Boilermakers put it away with a 9-3 run in the last three minutes, doing all the right things down the stretch because that's who they are, while Indiana didn't because that's who the Hoosiers are. And so the seven-point win was about what should have been expected given the occasion.
Ah, the skeptic in my head says. Just wait.
Just wait until the Boilers play Ohio State or Michigan State. Better yet, just wait until March, when they'll fold like laundry same as ever, because this is Purdue and March is Purdue's kryptonite. The Boilers haven't gotten past the Sweet Sixteen since Matt Painter's been on the sideline. They haven't been to a Final Four since before Gene Keady. So slow your roll, everyone.
Have I mentioned how much I hate this guy?
Because, you know, he's dead right about the aforementioned, and we all know it. Whether or not this is Purdue's Best Team Ever wasn't decided Sunday, and it won't be decided this month or next. It'll be decided in March, because that's when these things always get decided.
In the meantime, the Blob's judgment is this: Purdue is pretty damn good. They play solid defense. They have a multitude of weapons on offense. They not only have an old-school physical presence on the blocks in Isaac Haas, they have some of the best 3-point shooters in the nation on the perimeter, a pretty devastating combination. They are deep. They are unselfish. They make you work overtime on defense because they move the basketball so well and they find the open man -- and they have about six open men who can kill you when they're found.
Best Purdue team ever?
I don't know. That 1969 Final Four team with Rick Mount was pretty good, too. And the Troy Lewis-Todd Mitchell-Everette Stephens team in 1988 was even better -- and never mind that it got knocked out in the NCAA regional by Mitch Richmond and Kansas State.
A cautionary tale, perhaps?
No. Just Purdue being Purdue, the skeptic in my head whispers.
Hate that guy. Really, really hate him.
Anyway ... the skeptic has been watching this Purdue basketball team, which some prisoners of the moment have said is the Best Purdue Team Ever, and has been shooting down every positive the more congenial elements of the Blob sees.
Yes, Purdue has won a record 17 games in a row, but the Boilermakers aren't exactly blowing people out.
OK, so they're blowing some people out, even on the road, but those people don't count because A) they're not that good, B) all their good players are hurt, or C) they're not that good.
Purdue is 21-2 and 10-0 in the Big Ten, but they only beat Michigan by four in Mackey, and they only beat an inferior Indiana team by seven.
OK, so the Michigan team shot so well that night it would have beaten anyone else in the nation, and it's the same Michigan team that beat Michigan State by double digits in Breslin.
And, OK, so yesterday was a rivalry game, and it happened in one of the toughest places to play in America (Assembly Hall), and Indiana, when it shows up to play, is actually not terrible. When Robert Johnson and/or Josh Newkirk show up to play -- which they don't always, occasionally vanishing into the ether -- the Hoosiers can beat people. And Johnson in particular showed up to play yesterday.
Of course, Purdue still won. The Boilermakers put it away with a 9-3 run in the last three minutes, doing all the right things down the stretch because that's who they are, while Indiana didn't because that's who the Hoosiers are. And so the seven-point win was about what should have been expected given the occasion.
Ah, the skeptic in my head says. Just wait.
Just wait until the Boilers play Ohio State or Michigan State. Better yet, just wait until March, when they'll fold like laundry same as ever, because this is Purdue and March is Purdue's kryptonite. The Boilers haven't gotten past the Sweet Sixteen since Matt Painter's been on the sideline. They haven't been to a Final Four since before Gene Keady. So slow your roll, everyone.
Have I mentioned how much I hate this guy?
Because, you know, he's dead right about the aforementioned, and we all know it. Whether or not this is Purdue's Best Team Ever wasn't decided Sunday, and it won't be decided this month or next. It'll be decided in March, because that's when these things always get decided.
In the meantime, the Blob's judgment is this: Purdue is pretty damn good. They play solid defense. They have a multitude of weapons on offense. They not only have an old-school physical presence on the blocks in Isaac Haas, they have some of the best 3-point shooters in the nation on the perimeter, a pretty devastating combination. They are deep. They are unselfish. They make you work overtime on defense because they move the basketball so well and they find the open man -- and they have about six open men who can kill you when they're found.
Best Purdue team ever?
I don't know. That 1969 Final Four team with Rick Mount was pretty good, too. And the Troy Lewis-Todd Mitchell-Everette Stephens team in 1988 was even better -- and never mind that it got knocked out in the NCAA regional by Mitch Richmond and Kansas State.
A cautionary tale, perhaps?
No. Just Purdue being Purdue, the skeptic in my head whispers.
Hate that guy. Really, really hate him.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Buildup time
And now, on to the Please Don't Hurt Me Bowl, aka the Pro Bowl, in which some of your favorite players represent the AFC and the NFC in a contest to see who can best avoid the fabled Nagging Groin Injury that might hamper future contract extensions.
The NFL says that's not going to happen, that the Pro Bowl is real football players playing real football. This is always one of the great comic lines of any sporting year, right up there with "We stand by Coach Slobberknocker despite his 3-49 record" and "I'm not going to watch the Super Bowl because I don't care about either team, especially the X%$#@ Patriots."
Which brings to this: The Pro Bowl means we're one week out from the Super Bowl, and that means it's time to start hyping what might be a thrilling game of American football, but probably will be just another NFL game.
Notwithstanding that, plus the X%$#@ Patriots, you'll watch. You're not fooling anybody.
You'll watch because it's an American institution, and therefore you are required to pay homage to it. Plus you like grilled meats, brownies, chili-cheese dip in a football-shaped bowl and beer, lots of beer. Nothing like the Super Bowl as an excuse to roll all of that out, even though your doctor told you to knock that (bleep) off, you damn fool, or your heart will seize up like an '82 Escort.
So ... yeah. You'll watch.
Oh, maybe you'll pay more attention to the commercials, or the halftime show, or barely know anything about football. This is because the Super Bowl isn't about football. It's about the food and the beer and the prop bets ("How often will Bill Belichick scowl? I say 512 times") and the chance some edge rusher will turn Tom Brady into macramé.
Which will give you the chance to have the sort of conversations that always pop up during the Super Bowl, on account of half the people watching barely know who's playing.
NON-FOOTBALL PERSON: Look what they did to that poor fellow! Is that legal?
FOOTBALL PERSON: Well, it used to be.
NFP: Why don't the fellows in the striped shirts put a stop to it?
FP: I'm sure they will, because it's Tom Brady, and you're not allowed to touch Tom Brady. It's like a league rule.
NFP: Look at that scowling man over there. Is he the Boston coach? Why does he look so unhappy all the time? Doesn't he ever smile?
FP: Some people say they saw him do it once, but that's just a rumor.
NFP: And who is the Philadelphia quarterback again?
FP: I think his name is Nick Foles, Folds, something like that. No one ever heard of him until about two months ago.
(Silence while Brady rises, shakes his head, reattaches his arms and legs and makes his way back to the huddle like nothing happened)
NFP: Oh, look, Braden is OK!
FP (shotgunning another beer): It's Brady. And of course he's OK. He's a (bleeping) cyborg.
NFP: Is that legal?
The NFL says that's not going to happen, that the Pro Bowl is real football players playing real football. This is always one of the great comic lines of any sporting year, right up there with "We stand by Coach Slobberknocker despite his 3-49 record" and "I'm not going to watch the Super Bowl because I don't care about either team, especially the X%$#@ Patriots."
Which brings to this: The Pro Bowl means we're one week out from the Super Bowl, and that means it's time to start hyping what might be a thrilling game of American football, but probably will be just another NFL game.
Notwithstanding that, plus the X%$#@ Patriots, you'll watch. You're not fooling anybody.
You'll watch because it's an American institution, and therefore you are required to pay homage to it. Plus you like grilled meats, brownies, chili-cheese dip in a football-shaped bowl and beer, lots of beer. Nothing like the Super Bowl as an excuse to roll all of that out, even though your doctor told you to knock that (bleep) off, you damn fool, or your heart will seize up like an '82 Escort.
So ... yeah. You'll watch.
Oh, maybe you'll pay more attention to the commercials, or the halftime show, or barely know anything about football. This is because the Super Bowl isn't about football. It's about the food and the beer and the prop bets ("How often will Bill Belichick scowl? I say 512 times") and the chance some edge rusher will turn Tom Brady into macramé.
Which will give you the chance to have the sort of conversations that always pop up during the Super Bowl, on account of half the people watching barely know who's playing.
NON-FOOTBALL PERSON: Look what they did to that poor fellow! Is that legal?
FOOTBALL PERSON: Well, it used to be.
NFP: Why don't the fellows in the striped shirts put a stop to it?
FP: I'm sure they will, because it's Tom Brady, and you're not allowed to touch Tom Brady. It's like a league rule.
NFP: Look at that scowling man over there. Is he the Boston coach? Why does he look so unhappy all the time? Doesn't he ever smile?
FP: Some people say they saw him do it once, but that's just a rumor.
NFP: And who is the Philadelphia quarterback again?
FP: I think his name is Nick Foles, Folds, something like that. No one ever heard of him until about two months ago.
(Silence while Brady rises, shakes his head, reattaches his arms and legs and makes his way back to the huddle like nothing happened)
NFP: Oh, look, Braden is OK!
FP (shotgunning another beer): It's Brady. And of course he's OK. He's a (bleeping) cyborg.
NFP: Is that legal?
Saturday, January 27, 2018
The housecleaning begins
The university president is gone, trailing a lot of self-serving nonsense about how a great tragedy had been "politicized," and so the only thing she could do was step down.
(By which she meant, as almost everyone does when they resort to the P-word, that the tragedy got exposed by dedicated newspeople committing top-drawer journalism. Yes, Lou Anna Simon, getting caught not doing your job does indeed suck.)
Now the athletic director is gone, too, opting for retirement over outright banishment. Mark Hollis stepped away right before ESPN rolled out another devastating Outside The Lines report that indicated Michigan State's ham-handedness in dealing with athletic sexual predators extends far beyond letting Larry Nassar give young women a lifetime of nightmares for 20 years.
Which means this house ain't tidy yet, and the reckoning in East Lansing is going to continue. The latest OTL report puts bullseyes on both football coach Mark Dantonio and basketball coach Tom Izzo, which means they could easily get caught up in the purge. Even NCAA president Mark Emmert is on the griddle after it came out that he'd heard about the allegations against Nassar as far back as 2010.
It's an ugly business, getting yourself clean.
This brings us to Michigan State's utterly clueless board of trustees, currently backtracking in furious haste. The head of the board, Brian Breslin, now says it's obvious that MSU "has not been focused enough on the victims," mere days after telling us how important it was for the board to stand by the irretrievably tainted Simon. Various other board members who gave Simon the thumbs up are now telling the victims how sorry they are. You can take those statements with the grain of salt they deserve.
And then, show the people making them the same door Simon and Hollis took, and ask them to do the honorable thing.
(By which she meant, as almost everyone does when they resort to the P-word, that the tragedy got exposed by dedicated newspeople committing top-drawer journalism. Yes, Lou Anna Simon, getting caught not doing your job does indeed suck.)
Now the athletic director is gone, too, opting for retirement over outright banishment. Mark Hollis stepped away right before ESPN rolled out another devastating Outside The Lines report that indicated Michigan State's ham-handedness in dealing with athletic sexual predators extends far beyond letting Larry Nassar give young women a lifetime of nightmares for 20 years.
Which means this house ain't tidy yet, and the reckoning in East Lansing is going to continue. The latest OTL report puts bullseyes on both football coach Mark Dantonio and basketball coach Tom Izzo, which means they could easily get caught up in the purge. Even NCAA president Mark Emmert is on the griddle after it came out that he'd heard about the allegations against Nassar as far back as 2010.
It's an ugly business, getting yourself clean.
This brings us to Michigan State's utterly clueless board of trustees, currently backtracking in furious haste. The head of the board, Brian Breslin, now says it's obvious that MSU "has not been focused enough on the victims," mere days after telling us how important it was for the board to stand by the irretrievably tainted Simon. Various other board members who gave Simon the thumbs up are now telling the victims how sorry they are. You can take those statements with the grain of salt they deserve.
And then, show the people making them the same door Simon and Hollis took, and ask them to do the honorable thing.
Friday, January 26, 2018
X marks the not
And now ... it's XFL 2.0, folks!
Proving once again that no bad idea ever dies, it just hibernates until someone trips over it, nudges its sleeping carcass with one foot and exclaims "Hey! Look at this! I bet it'll work THIS time!"
There's a lot of that going on right now in the America of Our Only Available President, who never met a proven-to-explode policy he wouldn't roll out again. And so we've got the return of the old trickle-down economics shuck-and-jive, and letting Wall Street robber barons and the big banks off their well-earned leashes again, and a million other tired retreads that always end in disaster and will again this time.
In that sense, Vince McMahon is a man for his times, wanting to reboot the XFL. And to be honest, it was fun the first time, right? Who can forget He Hate Me? Who can forget the whole crazy, Wild West ambience of it all?
That was it was crushed under the weight of the Great American Behemoth, the NFL, was as predictable as everything else about it wasn't. And so the XFL went the way of the USFL, which went the way of the WFL, and for a lot of the same reasons: Because absurdly rich guys who've been successful in other ventures discovered that professional football is a wholly different animal.
(And, in the USFL, it failed because one rich guy turned out to be a lot less smart than most of the rich guys who launch start-up sports leagues. That, of course, would be our Only Available President, who was almost personally responsible for driving the USFL into a tree in less than two years. It was his bright idea to engage the NFL in a bidding war, failing to recognize that that way lay madness. Which is why the Blob has a hearty laugh every time L'Orange's true believers talk about what a brilliant businessman he is.)
Anyway ... you'll go broke taking on the NFL, but you'll never go broke betting there will always be people who think this time it will work. And so here comes another rich guy who's talked himself into believing the Great Behemoth is vulnerable.
It's not, really. Yes, it has its issues. Yes, the TV numbers are down. Yes, the Get Off My Lawn brigades hate that the sport allegedly has been "sissified" because the NFL belatedly has taken an interest in its players' welfare. Bring back guys drooling in their soup again, by God! Those were the days!
And so the Blob can see McMahon's reboot being sold to America with the slogan "The XFL: Football For Real Men." Or, perhaps, "The XFL: Where We Don't Give A (Bleep) If Our Players' Heads Get Turned Into Squash. They're Gettin' Paid, Aren't They?"
OK, So perhaps that's not what this will be. McMahon, in fact, says his reboot will be more family-friendly, and also safer. But we'll see what form it actually takes if it ever actually takes a form..
No, the problem with XFL 2.0 is not that it might present a radically different product. The problem is it wouldn't be different enough. Part of the reason the NFL's numbers are down, after all, is that there's just too much of it. For five months, the NFL is on Monday nights and Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons and Sunday nights, and occasionally even Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights. And so the notion that fans out there are hungering for even more football -- especially if you make it more violent -- seems a trifle head-in-the-clouds-y.
And here's the other thing: McMahon is rebooting this on the premise there's a vast pool of talent out there to be tapped. And it's true there are some 1,000 players who get cut by NFL teams every year. But as XFL 1.0 showed us, a lot of the reason those players got cut is because they weren't very good. Even without the XFL, the overall quality of quarterbacking in the NFL is often shockingly deficient. How bad will it be in the reconstituted XFL?
Even if the "safer" vision goes out the window, and you let edge rushers take QBs' heads off, mount them on the down markers and march up and down the sidelines howling at the moon.
The XFL: We Got Your Concussion Protocol Right Here.
(Until We Get Crushed Again By The NFL)
Proving once again that no bad idea ever dies, it just hibernates until someone trips over it, nudges its sleeping carcass with one foot and exclaims "Hey! Look at this! I bet it'll work THIS time!"
There's a lot of that going on right now in the America of Our Only Available President, who never met a proven-to-explode policy he wouldn't roll out again. And so we've got the return of the old trickle-down economics shuck-and-jive, and letting Wall Street robber barons and the big banks off their well-earned leashes again, and a million other tired retreads that always end in disaster and will again this time.
In that sense, Vince McMahon is a man for his times, wanting to reboot the XFL. And to be honest, it was fun the first time, right? Who can forget He Hate Me? Who can forget the whole crazy, Wild West ambience of it all?
That was it was crushed under the weight of the Great American Behemoth, the NFL, was as predictable as everything else about it wasn't. And so the XFL went the way of the USFL, which went the way of the WFL, and for a lot of the same reasons: Because absurdly rich guys who've been successful in other ventures discovered that professional football is a wholly different animal.
(And, in the USFL, it failed because one rich guy turned out to be a lot less smart than most of the rich guys who launch start-up sports leagues. That, of course, would be our Only Available President, who was almost personally responsible for driving the USFL into a tree in less than two years. It was his bright idea to engage the NFL in a bidding war, failing to recognize that that way lay madness. Which is why the Blob has a hearty laugh every time L'Orange's true believers talk about what a brilliant businessman he is.)
Anyway ... you'll go broke taking on the NFL, but you'll never go broke betting there will always be people who think this time it will work. And so here comes another rich guy who's talked himself into believing the Great Behemoth is vulnerable.
It's not, really. Yes, it has its issues. Yes, the TV numbers are down. Yes, the Get Off My Lawn brigades hate that the sport allegedly has been "sissified" because the NFL belatedly has taken an interest in its players' welfare. Bring back guys drooling in their soup again, by God! Those were the days!
And so the Blob can see McMahon's reboot being sold to America with the slogan "The XFL: Football For Real Men." Or, perhaps, "The XFL: Where We Don't Give A (Bleep) If Our Players' Heads Get Turned Into Squash. They're Gettin' Paid, Aren't They?"
OK, So perhaps that's not what this will be. McMahon, in fact, says his reboot will be more family-friendly, and also safer. But we'll see what form it actually takes if it ever actually takes a form..
No, the problem with XFL 2.0 is not that it might present a radically different product. The problem is it wouldn't be different enough. Part of the reason the NFL's numbers are down, after all, is that there's just too much of it. For five months, the NFL is on Monday nights and Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons and Sunday nights, and occasionally even Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights. And so the notion that fans out there are hungering for even more football -- especially if you make it more violent -- seems a trifle head-in-the-clouds-y.
And here's the other thing: McMahon is rebooting this on the premise there's a vast pool of talent out there to be tapped. And it's true there are some 1,000 players who get cut by NFL teams every year. But as XFL 1.0 showed us, a lot of the reason those players got cut is because they weren't very good. Even without the XFL, the overall quality of quarterbacking in the NFL is often shockingly deficient. How bad will it be in the reconstituted XFL?
Even if the "safer" vision goes out the window, and you let edge rushers take QBs' heads off, mount them on the down markers and march up and down the sidelines howling at the moon.
The XFL: We Got Your Concussion Protocol Right Here.
(Until We Get Crushed Again By The NFL)
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