Last Sunday morning, I drove my wife to Newark Airport. That was what Henny Youngman called a “pleasure trip.”
Along the Jersey Turnpike on my way there and back, I was surrounded by giant billboards encouraging people to gamble, gamble, and gamble some more.
More and more people are buying lottery tickets for people who want to become millionaires quickly.
There are also signs encouraging drives to casinos, where well-dressed young men and women sit at slot machines, rolling dice, spinning wheels, or handing out blackjack. He seemed happy about it. Happy, happy, happy!
(Drinks are available on-site, and credit is also available. Or try your luck at the ATM in the lobby.)
There were also a lot of sports betting signs, one in particular with the NFL and Giants logos on it. The best way to enjoy an NFL game is to place a high-value bundle bet, but the day ended with the Giants finishing 0-2 against the spread and the Rams losing their place in the national and rightfully curious last game. Kicked a field goal on the play to cover the spread. Lost to the 49ers.
The only other sign that caught my attention was that for a mental health clinic.
On my way home, I tuned into WFAN, a former sports station, and heard a tout named Nick Kostos screeching in double time. Kostos spoke as if he knew in advance how 22 people would act 11-on-11 at the same time and how a sharp-tipped ball would bounce. He was generous and willing to share that information with his listeners.
At one point, Kostos ranted out the name of a receiver he predicted would get over a certain amount of yards in a prop bet because that receiver was replacing a receiver who was “suspended for gambling.”
Well, then.
In the words of Stymy, the bright kid from “The Little Rascals,” “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way!”
The only clear signs of where we are going are all pointing behind us, backwards.
While the question of physical safety still remains, “Would you let your son play soccer?” — you could also add here, “Would you like to bring your family to a football game?”
Weekend high school games, here, there, everywhere, seem to be home to the ubiquitous “stray bullets,” in addition to the shootings of teenagers by teenagers.
At least 48 spectators were arrested or ejected from last Saturday’s Tennessee-Florida game, many of whom undoubtedly arrived early and fulfilled their plan to enter drunk and disorderly.
The game ended with an on-field brawl between the full-scholarship student-athletes. Four people continued to be suspended.
Last Sunday’s game between the Jets and Cowboys resulted in at least two bloody brawls between opposing gangs, fans dressed in the team’s colors.
And on Sunday night, 53-year-old Dale Mooney, who was attending the Dolphins-Patriots game, was hit in the head and later died. he died.
Witnesses said he went to an NFL game and was given a cold shoulder. After all, he was wearing a Pats shirt and his alleged attacker was wearing a Dolphin costume.
Preliminary examinations concluded that Mooney did not suffer from blunt force trauma, but something very ugly, deadly ugly, happened under Roger Goodell’s watch. However, Goodell allowed the NFL’s public relations staff to issue a statement saying his “thoughts and prayers are with him.”
And that the only fatal danger in the “NFL Experience” was being run over by a “fan” loading up and heading home. In 1999, after being ejected from a Giants game, his mother’s car was crashed by a driver who hit .226, leaving a 2-year-old passenger paralyzed for life. Nine years later, her family reached a $26 million settlement with the ballpark company that continued to overservice the man, and a smaller settlement with the Giants, NFL and drunk driver.
So, what should we do? Now where? Do you think today’s NFL games will be even more satisfying to live audiences? I don’t agree. We can only explain how it turned out: “It is what it is.”
As for Mr. Goodell, despite his lack of civility toward his mayhem-minded customers, he has not given a public response because this is bad news and bad news is none of his business. It does not even suggest any remedies after the fact.
The media always gives him a free pass anyway. Don’t just do something, Roger, stand there. Moreover, therapeutic actions have no immediate benefit. Just pour a few beers and you’ll start seeing profits.
What’s more, Goodell and the team owner sit in a plush box, far removed from the arguing, vomiting, drunkenness and fights, and nowhere near where Dale Mooney held Pats tickets for 30 years.
As British George Orwell wrote in 1949 about placating future populations in his novel 1984, “… [P]Fights with neighbors, movies, soccer, beer and above all gambling filled the horizon of their minds. ”
The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.
First, Deion Sanders flees a Texas charter school modestly named Prime Prep Academy, leaving behind poor black children, unpaid faculty, and unpaid bills. Five years later, he took the head coaching job at Jackson State, and last year in a pandering interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he said God personally directed him to pull the majority-black university out of football’s abyss. He claimed to have received it.
And last week on “60 Minutes,” now the “Coach Prime” annual Patty Cake TV headquarters, he said he came to Colorado after just two seasons at JSU, also by direct command from God. . No wonder he’s an inveterate braggart.
As a result, hundreds of children and youth will be left under the watchful eye of Coach Sanders’ agents of God — the kids at Prime Prep Academy, the Jackson State team, and many Coloradoans. players were asked to get lost so Sanders could take his place. Selected players, at least the ones God told him to sign.
And the son of the starting quarterback who left JSU with Sanders now owns and drives a $185,000 Maybach.
Well, the young people who were dumped by Mr. Sanders are now watching “60 Minutes” twice and hearing Coach Prime declare in semi-plain English that he is nothing but a humble servant of God. Just imagine that.
Please remember what I said. Sooner or later, every media outlet broadcasting Mr. Sanders’ transparent, nauseating game will wish they had never broadcast it.
TV people don’t understand soccer. They can’t help but apply baseball standards to a game not far removed from football.
On Monday night, ESPN’s “Another” NFL TV show, full-screen graphics of the Saints vs. Panthers, featured new Saints QB Derek Carr, Matt Ryan, Peyton Manning, and Dan Marino for the first nine games. He showed that he has an excellent performance with a total of 35,222 passing yards, which is second only to him. Carr is with the Raiders this season. However, ESPN’s Chris Fowler added that he “never made it”, meaning he never reached the Super Bowl, because the Raiders’ defense was bad.
But those bad defenses allowed him to throw for 35,222 yards. He was often forced to pitch early and often tried to play catch-up. In Carr’s case, it wasn’t “despite” but “because.”
The list of 300-yard passing games, which is often used as a metric to describe success, is logically filled with QBs whose teams lost games. In 1985, Phil Sims threw for 513 yards in a game the Giants lost 35-30. ESPN could have looked into it.
