The NFL Closes Ranks

Michael Sam will not be in the NFL on opening day in any form.

The Rams' defensive line being the strongest part of their team, they didn't put him on the practice squad either...

... as was the idea all along.

It was being reported (and I believe Brian Tuohy picked up on it, and if he didn't, someone else did) that, during the final picks of the NFL Draft, the league was literally begging teams to take Sam (and, let's add, a 2013 SEC Defensive Player of the Year) and got a taker in the Rams.

So, let's go down the facts here:

• The Rams appeared stacked on the defensive line already, with eight of their roster spots already locked in.
• The only D-lineman who wasn't ended up an undrafted free agent from a Division II school (yes, Westbrooks took the last spot).
• After the Rams' third pre-season game with Cleveland, Peter King of Sports Illustrated stated that he would be shocked if Michael Sam were not on the Rams' 53-man roster.
• On first cutdown day the following Monday, ESPN sends a reporter to the Rams locker room, ostensibly with the order to see if Sam got cut.  (IMODO, when he was not, her NEXT order was to see to it that he was.)
• This reporter concocts a piece that basically goes into the shower habits of Michael Sam, not unakin to the "red flag" post on other "undesirable" sports outcomes (like Boise State making the BCS championship game -- so ESPN, the week before the first official rankings (and for the one time they did) announced Boise was #1).
• On Saturday, Sam is cut.  On Sunday, he cleared waivers.  On Monday, no practice squad took him.  Michael Sam was the Rams' leading sacker in the preseason, and the leading tackler in, ostensibly, his "final exam" vs. the Dolphins.

I want to talk to you (and this is probably going to be a large part of a somewhat abbreviated "preview" of the 2014 season, which starts Thursday) about a concept.

Create the agenda and the dialogue.
Disseminate that agenda and dialogue.
Enforce the agenda and dialogue.

If an entity can do those three things, that agenda and dialogue WILL win.

It is nearly 40 years of the near-perfection of those three entities which has made the National Football League the most powerful corporate entity in the country.

I'll put them up against Wall Street and all.  When you get right down to it, the NFL has permeated American culture in such a way that it is the most powerful corporate entity in the United States of America, and the insidious way that Michael Sam was drummed out of the NFL.

The NFL, going back to Rozelle, has been a great example of creating a media story for a given end, disseminating that story, and then (the most important part) being able to back that story up with either legitimate or under-the-table "force".

I'll give another example:  The joke of the Oakland Raiders.

There are a number of books on the contentious legal issues of the NFL in the late 70's and early 80's.  One of the biggest such issues was when Al Davis sued the NFL after they tried to block his no-vote move to Los Angeles.

They lost.  In Los Angeles, the Raiders flourished, much to the chagrin of Commissioner (and long-time Al Davis rival) Pete Rozelle.

They moved back to Oakland in 1995, and, save a three-year run, have never finished better than 8-8.  Team has been 5-11 or worse nine out of the last eleven years.

Three times in twenty years, and the message, I have to believe, was clear:  You screw with the NFL, and the NFL screws with you.

The NFL has the power, the NFL exerts the power by becoming the dialogue, and then the NFL can enforce the power if they feel they are being slighted.

I've said this in various manners on this blog, but the NFL is a very misogynistic and mastubatory presentation -- from it's rape-level power-overs on the field to the cheerleaders on the sidelines to the ads where it is presented that EVERYTHING is bigger for "real men" -- their cars, their wallets, their dicks, their women's boobs...

And that's a very powerful message which permeates through the entire presentation of football at all levels -- right down to Pop Warner.

The NFL has created that presentation, used every conceivable means to disseminate it.

Now, in Michael Sam's situation the last ten days, you've seen the enforcement.

It is becoming clearer that I am forced to agree that Michael Sam was only drafted at the direction of the National Football League.  It would give the league some (false) positive reputation in the era of concussions and failed steroid tests.  It would also allow the homophobic pigs to oink their disapproval and keep the league in the front of the minds of Americans in the months of May, June, and July.

But Michael Sam didn't cooperate.  First, he chose to try to be recognized as *gasp!* a FOOTBALL PLAYER.

Second, he actually worked on some of his glaring weaknesses to try to help his position on the Rams.

Third (and this is the biggie), he produced on the field during the pre-season.  And, if we are still going to have a four-game preseason of any import, that has to be considered important, correct?

So Sam actually did his part of the bargain.  He went on the field, was given every chance, and he produced.  If there had been glaring errors, etc., ESPN would literally have harped on every second of it.

And when it was clear he had done his part to be in the discussion to make the Rams, the NFL (and ESPN) had to concoct a campaign to tamper with the Rams and essentially use all means at the disposal to ensure a result -- this one, off the field.

Hence, the shower story which will be the end of Michael Sam's on-field football odyssey -- unless he plays in Canada.  (Since he's not suspended, he can.)  A reporter goes in, stirs the muck with a completely inappropriate story, gets the nation boiling on the story again -- at which point, NFL Corporate (the league and it's sponsors) turn the screws, and Sam is cut and gone within a week.

Anyone who believes Jeff Fisher's "it was a football decision" is an idiot.

Anyone who believes Jeff Fisher, the guy who exposed the league's policy on getting coaches to use their timeouts late in a half because the network is a commercial or two short, believes it is an even bigger one.

But Jeff Fisher also knows the power this league has.  He only needs to look at an Oakland team who probably not only should shed their city, but their name, when the lease ends next year (what, as one example:  The San Antonio Raiders?).

The NFL, it's corporate sponsors, and it's image of football as a misogynistic and mastubatory exercise, win again.

And even when they lose (concussion settlement, concussion settlement increase, Sam gets drafted, etc.), they still win.

Why?

They create the dialogue, they disseminate it, then they enforce it.