I think it's crazy to ask taxpayers to fund about $600M of it, especially it today's climate and also because of how much money the NFL has.
I found this quote from a Vikings fan site:
Personally, if I was given a choice, I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the Minnesota legislature.
This crap disgusts me. I get upset every time I drive downtown and see Lucas Oil stadium. Freaking NFL owners can't afford to pay for their own stadiums???
1998 - Noblesville 2000 - Noblesville 2010 - Noblesville 2011 - EV solo St Louis, PJ20 Alpine Valley 2012 - San Fran (Oracle) 2013 - Wrigley, Pittsburgh, Buffalo 2014 - Cincy, St Louis, Detroit 2016 - Lexington, Wrigley 2018 - Wrigley 2022 - Nashville, St Louis 2024 - Noblesville, Wrigley
This crap disgusts me. I get upset every time I drive downtown and see Lucas Oil stadium. Freaking NFL owners can't afford to pay for their own stadiums???
Yeah it is pretty fucking ridiculous that they count on money from taxpayers to help fund a lot of these stadiums.
On a side note- I have a feeling we will be seeing the Los Angeles Vikings soon.
This crap disgusts me. I get upset every time I drive downtown and see Lucas Oil stadium. Freaking NFL owners can't afford to pay for their own stadiums???
Yeah it is pretty fucking ridiculous that they count on money from taxpayers to help fund a lot of these stadiums.
On a side note- I have a feeling we will be seeing the Los Angeles Vikings soon.
If it happens, does LA move into the NFC West w/ St. Louis moving to the NFC North?
This crap disgusts me. I get upset every time I drive downtown and see Lucas Oil stadium. Freaking NFL owners can't afford to pay for their own stadiums???
Yeah it is pretty fucking ridiculous that they count on money from taxpayers to help fund a lot of these stadiums.
On a side note- I have a feeling we will be seeing the Los Angeles Vikings soon.
If it happens, does LA move into the NFC West w/ St. Louis moving to the NFC North?
Jacksonville 3rd-Round Pick Punter Bryan Anger: 'I Will Punt The Jaguars To Greatness'
NEW YORK—Mere moments after becoming the highest-selected punter in the NFL Draft since 1995, Bryan Anger took the opportunity to thank the Jaguars and announce that he would do all he could to help punt the team to greatness.
"This is, without a doubt, the greatest moment of my life—and, I promise you, a defining moment in Jaguars history," Anger told reporters during a press conference after the decision Friday. "This is the year they punt themselves into the spotlight. I will do everything I can to make sure the Jaguars and punting will soon be seen as one and the same."
Anger also promised fans that, as their punter—and therefore the leader of the punt team—he would be the very model of a Jacksonville Jaguar, adding that they should "get used to me, because they're going to be hearing the name Bryan Anger all the time in years to come."
"It's every young punter's dream to make it to the NFL and punt the ball away at the elite level," Anger said. "I think Jacksonville gives me by far the best chance to do that."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/natejackson/fut ... to-destroy
Dear Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III,
You have been mentioned in the same breath for the last several months. And soon you will go 1-2 in the draft. It's a testament to your fantastic talent that there's still uncertainty – although very little – about where you’ll end up. But once you get drafted and shake hands with Darth Vader, your lives will diverge and you will be immersed fully in the identity of your new employers.
Immediately following the draft, you will board a private jet to your new cities, where you will step off the plane as Hope. The first stage will be a media event. All stages, in fact, will be media events. Whether leading your teams to triumph or failing miserably, every breath will be a public affair. For better or worse, your privacy is gone.
After the necessary posing and hand shaking and I’m-excited-to-be-a-part-of-this-organization-isms, you’ll be escorted into the locker room and shown your new stoop. It will look identical to all other stoops. And until you retire, this will be the only room on the planet where you’re safe, and where your struggle is understood.
Your last name will be unceremoniously taped over your locker and you’ll be gripped once again with the feeling of uncertainty that comes with a new beginning. The NFL is a man’s world, and even when secure in the blossoming of one’s own manhood, the question is unavoidable: Am I man enough?
You’ll be issued your playbooks – if you haven’t already – and you will dive in headfirst. The fate of every professional football player is determined not only by his talent but by his circumstance. The offensive system is not up to the player. The plays that are called: he must run them. The blocking prowess of his lineman: he cannot affect it. The willingness of his coach to cater a rigid offensive system to his unique talents: he does not decide it. His defense: he does not control it. The mental health of the team at large, which will determine the efficiency of the work environment: he does not control that either. He is one man, and on his back the city jumps, expecting that his legs alone will deliver them.
And there will be failures. Andrew, there will be times during practice when you will be outplayed by free-agent camp bodies who will never play a down of pro football. And RG3, there will be times when you will look so shitty that anyone watching will declare you a bust, and the team’s hopes lost. Yet it is through these tunnels that all players must pass — the Hall of Famer and the Never Will Be. The knowledge of this common struggle will unite a team in defiance of the conventional wisdom that suggests otherwise. Remember for every interception thrown, there is an interceptor in triumph. For every touchdown thrown, there is a defense in defeat. Leadership requires an acceptance of this, and will not work without it. A leader who lacks this perspective will lead no one but himself.
Chances are, you both already know this. But it is a nuance that is lost on the media. Simply showing the game on television is not enough. It must be accompanied with an explanation for why it happens. And this is where they fail us. Media knowledge isn’t so much knowledge at all, but sensation, flashed across a screen to stir the unbalanced longings in the heart. Out in society, you will be forced to choose: Do I prop up the myth or do I speak the truth? Or more directly: Am I the character they have created or am I me?
If this paradigm weren’t enough on its own, you will have a bucket full of non-football things to think about. First, everyone who meets you will see dollar signs. Everyone will want to “help you out.” When someone wants to sell me something or persuade me, I want no part of them. Yet if either of you are dismissive of strangers, you risk damaging your image, which you have been taught to protect. Do not worry about this. If you give your ear to fools, they’ll chew it off.
After negotiating your contracts, you both will surely buy a house in an affluent suburb where no 22-year-old would be happy living. Your new neighbors will be rich as well, facelifted, lipo-sucked, Xanaxed and dripping in diamonds, simply delighted to welcome you to the neighborhood. You will commission an interior decorator, recommended by a neighbor, to furnish your home. This will guarantee it feels nothing like Home. And someday, when all of this is over, you'll walk through and gaze upon the marble columns and the embroidered drapes like artifacts in a museum, wondering why you ever listened to that woman.
And there’s more. You'll buy a few cars, attend charity events and autograph signings, do endorsement deals, film commercials, go to golf tournaments, meet local investors and owners and politicians and more rich people on more Xanax and the surreal will become the real. The game that you fell in love with as a child will seem lost; a thump on the floorboard of your new Mercedes, swerved at high speeds to avoid a shadow in the night. The sights and sounds and smells of football, sensual memories that stir the passions in the soul, will be reconceived and recategorized, buried behind newer, odorless versions.
With all of this pushing against you, the role of friends and family becomes very important. There are people in this world to whom you're just Andrew and Robert. Son, brother, lover, friend. You need to lean on these people when the Weirdos start to make sense. You need to run to the familiarity of genuine friendship. But even in this, there will be a loneliness, because, as a defense mechanism, you will have assumed a piece of your new identity, and your loved ones won’t understand it. Caught in between these two worlds you'll drift. You'll feast on the fruits of excess, and will only grow hungrier. You'll dine with familiar faces, and find you've lost the taste. And so you'll get in your Mercedes on your days off and drive to the facility and watch film. Ah yes. Football. That’s what this is all about.
And your ability to keep this all in perspective will determine how you perform on the field. Once the whistle blows on Sundays, you'll be released from captivity, and you'll be free for three hours to truly live your dreams on the grandest scale you can imagine, against the best athletes on the planet. You will win or you will lose, but then the football game will end. The NFL game never will. Godspeed, boys.
Nate Jackson played for the Denver Broncos for six years.
[Over the weekend, Junior Seau's family put out oa statement that they were reconsidering donating his brain for study. The decision is incredibly difficult and raises many religious and cultural, in addition to emotional, questions for the family.]
Today brings news that the family of Junior Seau, the former 10-time All-Pro NFL linebacker who took his own life earlier this week, will be donating his brain for study. They want to know if brain injuries sustained during Seau’s 20-year career may have contributed to his suicide.
"The family was considering this almost from the beginning, but they didn't want to make any emotional decisions," Chargers team chaplain Shawn Mitchell told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday night. "And when they came to a joint decision that absolutely this was the best thing, it was a natural occurrence for the Seau family to go forward."
The ramifications of their decision cannot be overestimated. While we don’t know why Junior Seau committed suicide, there are stubborn facts around his death that can’t be ignored. We know that Seau was the NFL’s second suicide in the last two weeks. Former Atlanta Falcon Ray Easterling killed himself on April 19th.
We know that Seau took his life by shooting himself in the chest, and not the head. This was the method of suicide of former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson in February 2011. According to Duerson’s much publicized final note, he said he was putting a bullet in his heart instead of his head so his brain could be sent to the Boston University School of Medicine for study. His family complied and it was found that Duerson suffered from a neurodegenerative disease linked to concussions. Medical professionals link these injuries to depression, early-onset Alzheimer’s, and as a tragic corollary, suicide. His family is now suing the league in a wrongful death suit.
We also now know that not once in 20 years was Seau ever diagnosed with a concussion on an injury report. This is either a miracle akin to dancing between raindrops, or Seau and team doctors just didn’t report concussions when they occurred. When asked if her husband had ever suffered a concussion, Seau’s ex-wife Gina told ESPN, "Of course he had. He always bounced back and kept on playing. He's a warrior. That didn't stop him. I don't know what football player hasn't. It's not ballet. It's part of the game."
In a heartbreaking column, Sports Illustrated’s Jim Trotter reflected on the violent passing of his dear friend. He also revealed Seau’s thoughts about head injuries as well as his response to those who say that new safety rules are making the sport “too soft."
"Those who are saying the game is changing for the worse, well, they don't have a father who can't remember his name because of the game," Seau said to Trotter. "I'm pretty sure if everybody had to wake with their dad not knowing his name, not knowing his kids' name, not being able to function at a normal rate after football, they would understand that the game needs to change. If it doesn't there are going to be more players, more great players, being affected by the things that we know of and aren't changing. That's not right."
As the Seau family mourns, their deeply courageous decision to submit Seau’s brain for study can have mammoth ramifications far beyond the National Football League. If Seau is proven medically to be another casualty of the inherent violence of tackle football, questions will be raised that have consequences well beyond cosmetic changes like putting up warning posters in NFL locker rooms or moving the kick-offs to the 40 yard line. Should we be allowing children as young as five-years-old to be playing in tackle football leagues around the country? Should anyone under the age of 18, be permitted in partaking in something that, like smoking, is demonstrably proven to kill you before your time? Should NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell be absolutely obligated to give up his demands to make the season 18 games, given the risk involved? Should Roger Goodell and the other NFL owners stop fighting the now 1500 former players suing the NFL for their pain and suffering in retirement and just settle these cases now and come up with some sort of plan moving forward? Does the US Congress need to get involved and empower a team of neurologists not tied to the NFL to come up with a definitive risk assessment of playing tackle football?
There is a temptation to compare the modern NFL game to the ancient gladiator battles of Rome, with the publicly funded mega domes our modern coliseums. But that actually gives the NFL too much credit. Everyone in ancient Rome knew they were watching a blood sport with life or death consequences. The NFL sells itself as entertainment for the entire family. The death of Junior Seau means an end of the innocence. If the autopsy produces what we all expect, it will be time for everyone, from fans, to players, to the media, to owners, to Roger Goodell, to grow the hell up.
computer facepalms are much less consussive and damaging than a football game...i've said many times i love watching this game but dear lord this does not bode well for the NFL.
Giants’ Osi: Toomer ‘Dead Wrong’ For Comments On Warner
NEW YORK (WFAN) – Former Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer has been a one-man headline machine lately.
Toomer wasn’t too thrilled with the worries aired out last week by ex-NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, who said the idea of his sons playing football frightened him in the wake of “Bountygate” in New Orleans, the league’s increased number of concussions and the suicide of Junior Seau.
“I’d definitely have my son to play football,” Toomer said Thursday. “That’s what the Toomer family does. We all play football. What this reminds me of is the guy at the basketball court, who once he gets done playing takes the ball and ruins the game for everybody else.”
He added: “I think Kurt Warner needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to this. Everything that he’s gotten in his life has come from playing football. He works at the NFL Network right now. For him to try and trash the game, it seems to me that it’s just a little disingenuous to me.”
Toomer’s comments drew harsh criticism from a pair of former teammates. Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora defended Warner in a series of tweets Tuesday.
“Love Toomer thats my Guy, but he is dead wrong for attacking Kurt like that,” Umenyiora wrote.
Earlier, Umenyiora tweeted Warner was right “to think how he is thinking about his kids and football,” adding that it has been “an awesome game and has done a lot for me” but down the road “there is a strong chance (I’ll) be in a wheelchair.”
“If i can avoid that for my son, i will,” Umenyiora posted via Twitter. “But if he wants to play i wont stop him.”
Trevor Pryce, who played with Toomer at Michigan, said his ex-teammate’s salvo was “probably the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Here’s why,” Pryce told Jim Rome on the CBS Sports Network, “the fact that Kurt Warner said he didn’t want his kids playing football should be predicated on one thing — he didn’t want his kids playing NFL football. And that’s a big difference. Little league football? Every kid wants to play little league football.”
For Toomer, it wasn’t anything personal.
“I love Kurt … I just didn’t agree with his recent comments,” he tweeted last week. “Friends can disagree. right?”
will the suicide rate in Minnesota go up or down if the Vikings leave? On the one hand there might be an immediate spike because the team is gone, but the long term effects of having a team that sucks that bad out of the area might be good for the city and state.
Comments
please leave your work at home.
thanks
mgmt
Yeah they do. All of the new NFL Nike gear looks great...I'm going to have to grab some new Bears stuff soon.
I have no use for them but I like the gloves. Very creative IMO.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7886583/gop-abandons-11th-hour-minnesota-vikings-stadium-plan
I think it's crazy to ask taxpayers to fund about $600M of it, especially it today's climate and also because of how much money the NFL has.
I found this quote from a Vikings fan site:
Personally, if I was given a choice, I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the Minnesota legislature.
This crap disgusts me. I get upset every time I drive downtown and see Lucas Oil stadium. Freaking NFL owners can't afford to pay for their own stadiums???
2000 - Noblesville
2010 - Noblesville
2011 - EV solo St Louis, PJ20 Alpine Valley
2012 - San Fran (Oracle)
2013 - Wrigley, Pittsburgh, Buffalo
2014 - Cincy, St Louis, Detroit
2016 - Lexington, Wrigley
2018 - Wrigley
2022 - Nashville, St Louis
2024 - Noblesville, Wrigley
Yeah it is pretty fucking ridiculous that they count on money from taxpayers to help fund a lot of these stadiums.
On a side note- I have a feeling we will be seeing the Los Angeles Vikings soon.
I hope it works out. That area would be devastated if the team left. :x
that woudl make too much sense
The Rams' owner wants to move to LA too, or would the Vikes move put the kibosh on that?
NEW YORK—Mere moments after becoming the highest-selected punter in the NFL Draft since 1995, Bryan Anger took the opportunity to thank the Jaguars and announce that he would do all he could to help punt the team to greatness.
"This is, without a doubt, the greatest moment of my life—and, I promise you, a defining moment in Jaguars history," Anger told reporters during a press conference after the decision Friday. "This is the year they punt themselves into the spotlight. I will do everything I can to make sure the Jaguars and punting will soon be seen as one and the same."
Anger also promised fans that, as their punter—and therefore the leader of the punt team—he would be the very model of a Jacksonville Jaguar, adding that they should "get used to me, because they're going to be hearing the name Bryan Anger all the time in years to come."
"It's every young punter's dream to make it to the NFL and punt the ball away at the elite level," Anger said. "I think Jacksonville gives me by far the best chance to do that."
......
http://www.theonion.com/articles/jacksonville-3rdround-pick-punter-bryan-anger-i-wi,28088/
Dear Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III,
You have been mentioned in the same breath for the last several months. And soon you will go 1-2 in the draft. It's a testament to your fantastic talent that there's still uncertainty – although very little – about where you’ll end up. But once you get drafted and shake hands with Darth Vader, your lives will diverge and you will be immersed fully in the identity of your new employers.
Immediately following the draft, you will board a private jet to your new cities, where you will step off the plane as Hope. The first stage will be a media event. All stages, in fact, will be media events. Whether leading your teams to triumph or failing miserably, every breath will be a public affair. For better or worse, your privacy is gone.
After the necessary posing and hand shaking and I’m-excited-to-be-a-part-of-this-organization-isms, you’ll be escorted into the locker room and shown your new stoop. It will look identical to all other stoops. And until you retire, this will be the only room on the planet where you’re safe, and where your struggle is understood.
Your last name will be unceremoniously taped over your locker and you’ll be gripped once again with the feeling of uncertainty that comes with a new beginning. The NFL is a man’s world, and even when secure in the blossoming of one’s own manhood, the question is unavoidable: Am I man enough?
You’ll be issued your playbooks – if you haven’t already – and you will dive in headfirst. The fate of every professional football player is determined not only by his talent but by his circumstance. The offensive system is not up to the player. The plays that are called: he must run them. The blocking prowess of his lineman: he cannot affect it. The willingness of his coach to cater a rigid offensive system to his unique talents: he does not decide it. His defense: he does not control it. The mental health of the team at large, which will determine the efficiency of the work environment: he does not control that either. He is one man, and on his back the city jumps, expecting that his legs alone will deliver them.
And there will be failures. Andrew, there will be times during practice when you will be outplayed by free-agent camp bodies who will never play a down of pro football. And RG3, there will be times when you will look so shitty that anyone watching will declare you a bust, and the team’s hopes lost. Yet it is through these tunnels that all players must pass — the Hall of Famer and the Never Will Be. The knowledge of this common struggle will unite a team in defiance of the conventional wisdom that suggests otherwise. Remember for every interception thrown, there is an interceptor in triumph. For every touchdown thrown, there is a defense in defeat. Leadership requires an acceptance of this, and will not work without it. A leader who lacks this perspective will lead no one but himself.
Chances are, you both already know this. But it is a nuance that is lost on the media. Simply showing the game on television is not enough. It must be accompanied with an explanation for why it happens. And this is where they fail us. Media knowledge isn’t so much knowledge at all, but sensation, flashed across a screen to stir the unbalanced longings in the heart. Out in society, you will be forced to choose: Do I prop up the myth or do I speak the truth? Or more directly: Am I the character they have created or am I me?
If this paradigm weren’t enough on its own, you will have a bucket full of non-football things to think about. First, everyone who meets you will see dollar signs. Everyone will want to “help you out.” When someone wants to sell me something or persuade me, I want no part of them. Yet if either of you are dismissive of strangers, you risk damaging your image, which you have been taught to protect. Do not worry about this. If you give your ear to fools, they’ll chew it off.
After negotiating your contracts, you both will surely buy a house in an affluent suburb where no 22-year-old would be happy living. Your new neighbors will be rich as well, facelifted, lipo-sucked, Xanaxed and dripping in diamonds, simply delighted to welcome you to the neighborhood. You will commission an interior decorator, recommended by a neighbor, to furnish your home. This will guarantee it feels nothing like Home. And someday, when all of this is over, you'll walk through and gaze upon the marble columns and the embroidered drapes like artifacts in a museum, wondering why you ever listened to that woman.
And there’s more. You'll buy a few cars, attend charity events and autograph signings, do endorsement deals, film commercials, go to golf tournaments, meet local investors and owners and politicians and more rich people on more Xanax and the surreal will become the real. The game that you fell in love with as a child will seem lost; a thump on the floorboard of your new Mercedes, swerved at high speeds to avoid a shadow in the night. The sights and sounds and smells of football, sensual memories that stir the passions in the soul, will be reconceived and recategorized, buried behind newer, odorless versions.
With all of this pushing against you, the role of friends and family becomes very important. There are people in this world to whom you're just Andrew and Robert. Son, brother, lover, friend. You need to lean on these people when the Weirdos start to make sense. You need to run to the familiarity of genuine friendship. But even in this, there will be a loneliness, because, as a defense mechanism, you will have assumed a piece of your new identity, and your loved ones won’t understand it. Caught in between these two worlds you'll drift. You'll feast on the fruits of excess, and will only grow hungrier. You'll dine with familiar faces, and find you've lost the taste. And so you'll get in your Mercedes on your days off and drive to the facility and watch film. Ah yes. Football. That’s what this is all about.
And your ability to keep this all in perspective will determine how you perform on the field. Once the whistle blows on Sundays, you'll be released from captivity, and you'll be free for three hours to truly live your dreams on the grandest scale you can imagine, against the best athletes on the planet. You will win or you will lose, but then the football game will end. The NFL game never will. Godspeed, boys.
Nate Jackson played for the Denver Broncos for six years.
Junior Seau's Family Will Allow His Brain To Be Studied and the NFL Holds Its Breath
By Dave Zirin
Print this article
[Over the weekend, Junior Seau's family put out oa statement that they were reconsidering donating his brain for study. The decision is incredibly difficult and raises many religious and cultural, in addition to emotional, questions for the family.]
Today brings news that the family of Junior Seau, the former 10-time All-Pro NFL linebacker who took his own life earlier this week, will be donating his brain for study. They want to know if brain injuries sustained during Seau’s 20-year career may have contributed to his suicide.
"The family was considering this almost from the beginning, but they didn't want to make any emotional decisions," Chargers team chaplain Shawn Mitchell told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday night. "And when they came to a joint decision that absolutely this was the best thing, it was a natural occurrence for the Seau family to go forward."
The ramifications of their decision cannot be overestimated. While we don’t know why Junior Seau committed suicide, there are stubborn facts around his death that can’t be ignored. We know that Seau was the NFL’s second suicide in the last two weeks. Former Atlanta Falcon Ray Easterling killed himself on April 19th.
We know that Seau took his life by shooting himself in the chest, and not the head. This was the method of suicide of former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson in February 2011. According to Duerson’s much publicized final note, he said he was putting a bullet in his heart instead of his head so his brain could be sent to the Boston University School of Medicine for study. His family complied and it was found that Duerson suffered from a neurodegenerative disease linked to concussions. Medical professionals link these injuries to depression, early-onset Alzheimer’s, and as a tragic corollary, suicide. His family is now suing the league in a wrongful death suit.
We also now know that not once in 20 years was Seau ever diagnosed with a concussion on an injury report. This is either a miracle akin to dancing between raindrops, or Seau and team doctors just didn’t report concussions when they occurred. When asked if her husband had ever suffered a concussion, Seau’s ex-wife Gina told ESPN, "Of course he had. He always bounced back and kept on playing. He's a warrior. That didn't stop him. I don't know what football player hasn't. It's not ballet. It's part of the game."
In a heartbreaking column, Sports Illustrated’s Jim Trotter reflected on the violent passing of his dear friend. He also revealed Seau’s thoughts about head injuries as well as his response to those who say that new safety rules are making the sport “too soft."
"Those who are saying the game is changing for the worse, well, they don't have a father who can't remember his name because of the game," Seau said to Trotter. "I'm pretty sure if everybody had to wake with their dad not knowing his name, not knowing his kids' name, not being able to function at a normal rate after football, they would understand that the game needs to change. If it doesn't there are going to be more players, more great players, being affected by the things that we know of and aren't changing. That's not right."
As the Seau family mourns, their deeply courageous decision to submit Seau’s brain for study can have mammoth ramifications far beyond the National Football League. If Seau is proven medically to be another casualty of the inherent violence of tackle football, questions will be raised that have consequences well beyond cosmetic changes like putting up warning posters in NFL locker rooms or moving the kick-offs to the 40 yard line. Should we be allowing children as young as five-years-old to be playing in tackle football leagues around the country? Should anyone under the age of 18, be permitted in partaking in something that, like smoking, is demonstrably proven to kill you before your time? Should NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell be absolutely obligated to give up his demands to make the season 18 games, given the risk involved? Should Roger Goodell and the other NFL owners stop fighting the now 1500 former players suing the NFL for their pain and suffering in retirement and just settle these cases now and come up with some sort of plan moving forward? Does the US Congress need to get involved and empower a team of neurologists not tied to the NFL to come up with a definitive risk assessment of playing tackle football?
There is a temptation to compare the modern NFL game to the ancient gladiator battles of Rome, with the publicly funded mega domes our modern coliseums. But that actually gives the NFL too much credit. Everyone in ancient Rome knew they were watching a blood sport with life or death consequences. The NFL sells itself as entertainment for the entire family. The death of Junior Seau means an end of the innocence. If the autopsy produces what we all expect, it will be time for everyone, from fans, to players, to the media, to owners, to Roger Goodell, to grow the hell up.
Giants’ Osi: Toomer ‘Dead Wrong’ For Comments On Warner
NEW YORK (WFAN) – Former Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer has been a one-man headline machine lately.
Toomer wasn’t too thrilled with the worries aired out last week by ex-NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, who said the idea of his sons playing football frightened him in the wake of “Bountygate” in New Orleans, the league’s increased number of concussions and the suicide of Junior Seau.
“I’d definitely have my son to play football,” Toomer said Thursday. “That’s what the Toomer family does. We all play football. What this reminds me of is the guy at the basketball court, who once he gets done playing takes the ball and ruins the game for everybody else.”
He added: “I think Kurt Warner needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to this. Everything that he’s gotten in his life has come from playing football. He works at the NFL Network right now. For him to try and trash the game, it seems to me that it’s just a little disingenuous to me.”
Toomer’s comments drew harsh criticism from a pair of former teammates. Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora defended Warner in a series of tweets Tuesday.
“Love Toomer thats my Guy, but he is dead wrong for attacking Kurt like that,” Umenyiora wrote.
Earlier, Umenyiora tweeted Warner was right “to think how he is thinking about his kids and football,” adding that it has been “an awesome game and has done a lot for me” but down the road “there is a strong chance (I’ll) be in a wheelchair.”
“If i can avoid that for my son, i will,” Umenyiora posted via Twitter. “But if he wants to play i wont stop him.”
Trevor Pryce, who played with Toomer at Michigan, said his ex-teammate’s salvo was “probably the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Here’s why,” Pryce told Jim Rome on the CBS Sports Network, “the fact that Kurt Warner said he didn’t want his kids playing football should be predicated on one thing — he didn’t want his kids playing NFL football. And that’s a big difference. Little league football? Every kid wants to play little league football.”
For Toomer, it wasn’t anything personal.
“I love Kurt … I just didn’t agree with his recent comments,” he tweeted last week. “Friends can disagree. right?”
http://youtu.be/vFyFCuBgRTA
I hate seeing franchises move. They mean so much more to areas than just economics. My fingers are crossed for Buffalo.
Looks like gambling money will be used for a large portion. A lot of grammas will be building this stadium a nickle at a time.
Uff Da!
http://deadspin.com/5909394/?utm_campai ... socialflow