From Distance: NFL vs NBA (Uncomfortable Issues)

four point play….

1. The NFL is certainly not the most “forward thinking” league we have. At its best, the NFL provides a venue for us to see humans of drastically different sizes and shapes combine power and speed like nothing else in the world of sports.

It is a beautifully intricate game, easily the most complex because of its individual play structure. Eleven guys each have specifically coordinated actions that another group of eleven must stop.

For as much as I love basketball, its Xs and Os pale in comparison to America’s favorite game. A free-flowing game like basketball and soccer simply doesn’t have the same opportunity for complicated play-calling as a game that features stoppage between four specific downs.

Football is a glorious sport at its essence, but it is now impossible to enjoy the NFL without thinking and feeling about two very pronounced issues.

The first, and likely less controversial, is the concussion issue. I’ll try not to delve too deeply into this one. We all know the research at this point and it is abjectly terrifiying.

Venice’s famed art Biennale featured a looping video of football players stumbling around after taking huge hits. I couldn’t watch it without feeling ill. I won’t subject you to it now.

Seriously though, if a famed art festival is using your sport’s biggest issue to highlight a negative aspect of the human condition, you might be in trouble.

My solution? Take off the helmets (not like our man, Garrett. We shall get to him in a second).

I mean ditch helmet wearing all together. A guy might die every now and then by accident, but one wouldn’t have repeated head trama like we currently have.

No one is using their head like a weapon if they aren’t equipped with armour. Yes, rugby also has its problems even without helmets, but it seems that most damage occurs near the line of scrimmage for football players when they slam their heads into other heads on literally every down.

Without a helmet, people learn to tackle again, the spearing disappears, and a person’s normal sense of caution returns.

Acute injuries would probably go up. That is why we are in this predicament to begin with. Our idiotic society simply cannot deal with long-term consequences.

2. Whether it football, the economy, or climate disaster, we always look the other way until what was once a manageable impending doom becomes inescapable catastrophe.

Humanity can be pretty smart when our back is up against the wall. We are just terrible at recognizing exactly when that wall slams against us. Heaven forbid we listen to an expert or a million.

So yeah, the second some guy is dead on contact because football no longer features on-field weaponry, folks will scream about how unsafe it is.

Typical Americans. It is fine if people die. It is their choice to be modern day gladiators and they are handsomely paid for it. Just make sure you die later out of sight so we can enjoy our Sunday afternoon without having to be truly confronted by the reality of the sport we love.

3. While we have some consensus building regarding the concussion issue, we seem to remain hopelessly divided on inherent racism in the sport.

The lack of black coaches has been discussed and addressed by the Rooney Rule without it really affecting much change.

More damning is this: There has never been a black team president in the history of the league.

Never. That is beyond ridiculous.

It should then come as no surprise that the NFL tried its best to pull one over on Colin Kaepernick and the American public at large.

The moment the NFL decided to hold this random workout, skeptical fans were right to wonder whether it was a legit shot, or simply a way for the NFL to “prove” that Kap actually isn’t a viable player.

When the NFL put language in the waiver forbidding Kapernick to have his own recording of the workout while also closing it to the media, it was clear as day that the NFL planned on going full collusion.

“Well, we really wanted to give him a chance, but his skills just aren’t there anymore. A real shame.”

That is what they wanted out of this farce of a tryout. Kap could have had the best workout ever and it wouldn’t have mattered. They were setting him up.

Fortunately for us, Kap is no fool, and he was not about to be played. He isn’t hiding his skills. He isn’t just a cause. That dude wants to be one of the gladiators subjecting himself to possible death because of his love of the game.

And yet, because the NFL is tied to incredibly conservative sponsors and owners, Kap is on the outs. ESPN talking heads like Stephen A. Smith make sure to keep their paychecks by not going against the NFL.

The Myles Garrett situation further illustrated the insanity that are NFL race relations. There is simply NO way that a black QB doesn’t get suspended for doing what Mason Rudolph did.

Zero.

I won’t say whether Rudolph used racial slurs or not. We can’t know, though considering how much Rudolph played the victim in the post-game, I don’t have a lot of faith in his integrity.

Regardless of that potentially consequential slur, his physical actions against Garrett to instigate the whole thing would have absolutely been suspension worthy if he were a black player.

Feel free to say, “that is just speculation” and I will be free to say you are an idiot. Make all parties black linemen or defensive backs and every one of them is suspended at least a game. You know it is true.

I am in no way absolving Garrett’s actions. I am simply pointing out the double standard in the NFL’s justice system. The NFL has not earned the benefit of the doubt.

4. In the NBA, Luka Doncic shows that racism can be a part of player evaluation in our favorite league as well.

While it is true a primary reason NBA folks didn’t take Luka seriously enough had as much to do with their ignorance to the quality of Euro League play as it did the color of his skin, I have a hard time believing that Luka would have been described as unathletic as frequently as he was, and still is, had he not been white.

Luka is a Paul Pierce level athlete only with elite lateral and start and stop quickness. Pierce was rarely described as unathletic, simply as “not a freak athlete”.

That is usually how an elite player with only adequate leaping ability is described. With Luka, he only gets bemused smirks.

I am obviously far more ok with this racism than I am with the NFL version. Why?

Because white skeptics are actively rooting for Luka to succeed while the same is not true for most black QBs. Many white GMs and reporters were as skeptical of Luka’s potential as any black GM, but the underlying sentiment remains “it would be awesome to have another Larry Bird.”

One is an almost cheerful trope that movies are made around, ie “White Men Can’t Jump”, while the other one mirrors our failures in race relations in the society at large.

The justice system has different rules for different communities. They make movies about that too, but they are the kind that make you want to march against injustice.

Well, unless you are the type of person who fails to see the difference between these two examples of racism. If you are having trouble, I ask you this. Do you identify with one guy more than the other?

Just a question as I would imagine most of you have far more in common with American Colin Kaepernick than Slovenian Luka Doncic.

Oh, you mean it might be that other thing? Yeah? Then you are part of the problem.

Bonus: Stop complaining about load management. Either we want to see these guys play for as long as possibe, providing a decade of playoff joy, or we are more concerned about a random regular season game in November.