We Take A Break From the Outrage To Complete Week One...

... a very interesting, and a very un-Goodell-esque, Week One.

Scoring, for example, was DOWN.  I don't have my former chart, so I can't go back to 2001 or so like I used to.

However, scoring for this week was only 44.75 points per game.  That is about two points below the 46.707 which was last year's season total.

And only one of the four national games was in any real doubt -- if you wish to make a case for Indianapolis-Denver, I probably can't argue with you, but Denver was in control for most of the contest.

11 of the 16 games had at least one time of the fourth quarter where the game was within 8 points.
7 of the 16 were decided by 8 or fewer points.
3 of the 16 were decided by one (or more!) scores in the last two minutes or overtime.  (The two overtime games (BUF-CHI and ATL-NO, the latter having three lead-changing and one game-tying scores in final 3 minutes of regulation and in overtime) and PIT-CLE.)

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And, with all the Points of Emphasis and all the flags that flew in the pre-season...

Week One didn't see many at all.

(And it was probably a large reason the scores were down and the Over/Under only went 7-9/6-9-1, depending on where you got the Sunday nighter.)

Some interesting factoids:

• Home teams were 12-4.
• 222 penalties were accepted in Week One -- an average of about 14 a game.
• The winning team was penalized about an accepted penalty and a half per game more than the loser.
• The home team was called for more penalties in seven of the 16 games.
• No team was called for more than six Points of Emphasis fouls.  (Accepted penalties of defensive holding, illegal contact, pass interference, and illegal use of the hands.)  Atlanta was called for six, and won.
• No team which was called for more than three PoE fouls LOST.  San Francisco, Buffalo, and Atlanta were called for four or more such fouls -- all three won.
• Eight teams committed no such accepted penalties.  The only two of those eight who won were in games where no Points of Emphasis penalties were accepted at all!  If a team committed any accepted such fouls vs. a team which did not, the team which did won all four games.
• The team committing more PoE fouls only lost two of the 16 games, with four having both teams with the same number of accepted fouls.  This means the team which committed more accepted defensive PoE fouls won 10 of the 16 games played.
• The team committing more accepted penalties was 9-7.
• Favorites were only 9-7 straight up, and 5-11 vs. the number.

Oh my... And then THIS ONE, almost as if Emmert waited for cover to wave the white flag!!

Mark Emmert has been completely emasculated by the culture of football at Penn State University.

We knew this already.

Today, as if under the cover of the Ray Rice outrage everybody should've known was coming, the NCAA just lifted the postseason ban once and for all.  Penn State is bowl-eligible THIS YEAR.

Football over everything, and, given what's happened the first two weeks and the very real schedule that PSU gets this year, they probably just leapt to the front of the line for a Big Ten berth in the CFP.

I can understand the concept of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty"...

But, just upon getting on the Net this morning, I've seen one call for an additional suspension to Ray Rice (Bing Sports on Windows 8), and another demanding his outright release (Yahoo!) and a third stating that current and former players say he needs to be banned for life right now (more Yahoo!).

The rest of the story -- a new video from the elevator -- just came out, and it basically shows Ray Rice in all his "glory".

TMZ has released a second video, and this one actually shows the punch which Rice used to knock his then-fiance and current wife out.

It's so bad that, in Football Nation America, Scott Fujita said the following this morning:



In no uncertain terms, and in ABSOLUTELY no uncertain terms, I agree with you.

But you CANNOT tell me that football players, on all levels, across this nation, don't get away with this and worse on wives, girlfriends, random strangers, and other people they consider their lessers.

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ESPN UPDATE AS I WRITE THIS:  Ray Rice has been CUT.  He has been FIRED by the Baltimore Ravens this morning.

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The problem is not just Ray Rice.  Anyone with a brain knew that something BAD went down in that elevator.

Frankly, this cut should've happened several weeks ago, and THEN the Commissioner can act.

But the problem, and it's one reason we really need to re-examine why we even have especially football in this nation, is that violence and subjugation toward their lessers (be they weaker players, women, LD students, etc. and so forth) is part and parcel of the football culture of this country.

Yes, more than just football players beat their wives, etc. and so forth.  I get that.

But one cannot tell me that this "sport" has not had a hand in making Ray Rice an inhumane being who, heat of the moment, felt it was right to do as this new video shows he has done.

This misogynistic and mastubatory enterprise shows America at it's worst, and has a hand in creating all this, from the head shots to the steroids to the attitudes perpetrated onto and by the participants.

Erin Gloria Ryan of the Jezebel women's affairs sister site to Deadspin has called for an absolute boycott of the NFL by all female fans, saying any female who chooses to be an NFL fan is a hypocrite.

Frankly, I might add "idiot" to that.  Any person who can't see that this is the ultimate manifestation of manhood, in the eyes of a Football Nation and Religion that has run amok in this country, really needs to be protected from themselves as well as these football-laced animals.

And then there's another angle, as another Deadspin article points out:  The NFL claims, in statements today, it didn't have this second video.

Adam Schefter claims otherwise, and he's not afraid to say it.

The NFL is lying to everybody, Adam.  The entire Football Nation America is lying as well.

Football players across this nation are literally given women as pieces of meat to do as they so elect, and this starts in HIGH SCHOOL -- if not EARLIER.

Anyone who is completely shocked by this video has no idea of just how much of this goes on on an everyday basis in this country.  We allow these "men" to do as they wish -- mostly without retribution, save the occasional sacrificial lamb to try to keep people quiet -- as their "prize" for "being a real man" and getting their brains knocked out on the field.

What the fuck do you think the cheerleaders and halftime dancers are anymore, if not designated harems for the athletes?

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More new news:  Goodell's hand has been forced:  RAY RICE HAS BEEN BANNED.

Roger Goodell has announced that based on new video evidence that became available today he has indefinitely suspended Ray Rice.
— Greg Aiello (@gregaiello) September 8, 2014 

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I believe if we ever have an accounting of the number of football players and other athletes who commit these levels of acts, the numbers would be staggering.

Today is basically only the end everybody should've known was coming.  To be a "football player" and a "real man" in this country has become part and parcel to violence toward women and others considered their lessers, and anyone who is truly shocked at this new video is, well...  an idiot.

Anyone who doesn't understand the level of cover-up on the part of Football Nation America, doubly so.

The NBA loses another owner for racism/bigotry, leaving only one real question...

Well, "Duty of Loyalty" has just claimed another NBA owner.

The majority owner of the Atlanta Hawks, Bruce Levenson, has decided to divest himself of his stake in the Hawks after self-reporting a Donald Sterling-esque e-mail he sent in 2012.

The Daily Mail reports that the e-mail, which Levenson reported to the league after Sterling's expulsion, leading to an investigation by Adam Silver and the NBA, was perceived as an attempt to bridge racial divides in Atlanta sports and attempt to bring in more suburban (read: Caucasian/White) fans.

Several money quotes, from the Daily Mail article, from the e-mail as released by the Hawks:

"My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base."

"Please don't get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arena back then. I never felt uncomfortable, but I think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority."

The article notes:  "Levenson said Hawks crowds were 70 percent black, the team's cheerleaders were black and hip-hop music was played."

Duty of Loyalty, ladies and gentlemen.

Which leads to only one remaining question:  How many more owners is the NBA going to lose?  Have we opened Pandora's Box here, finding out that the White owners of the NBA, by and large, have no regard for the urban/Black nature of many of the players and of the sport and fans too?

Surprised we don't see this more often...

NASCAR race (top series) at Richmond tonight.

Caution just flew.

Oh, this isn't one of those "debris on the track" ones...

Unless you call that drunk idiot climbing the fence on Turn 4 "debris"...

Are We Now Going To Compete To See Who's Running Scared The Fastest?

• So, after last night's debacle at 12th Man Temple, Richard Sherman decided to talk some more smack at Aaron Rodgers after the Seahags ended any real chance the Green Bay Packers were going to win the Super Bowl (not that they ever did, just a function of that many of the pundits felt they were before the season).  Sherman thought Rodgers was avoiding him during the game, to which Jake Milliman Aaron Rodgers said yes.  That's basically saying "We know we're not going to be allowed to win the game, so I'm really going to look like the pussy you just turned us in to.  We are, officially, your bitch.", right, Aaron?  (Source:  Yahoo!/CBS Sports)
• Speaking of pussies...  I don't know if this is the NFL covering ass and trying to discredit Jerry Jones and Dallas, trying to send heat to the Rams, or the whole Michael Sam thing is a continuing fucking sham, but Michael Sam was signed to the practice squad of the Cowboys this week.  The reason I say the former is that Peter King (who, two weeks before, tweeted that Sam would, by all accounts, make the 53-man roster for the Rams) said on the pre-game of Hags/Packers that the NFL was pushing for Sam to be put on a practice squad.  (Jones denies being pushed to do so, and, given the utterly pathetic state of his team's defense, I'd ALMOST give him the benefit of the doubt!)  (Source, among others:  Pro Football Talk, NBC Sports)
• Why am I not so sure the NFL wanted Sam on a practice squad?  Because of a Deadspin interview this week with Steve Almond, and the book he wrote, which almost-directly mirrors the experience of other former football fans, including some who I correspond with personally, some of whom read this blog and contribute.

His book is Against Football, One Man's Reluctant Manifesto, and was released last week into bookstores.

It is basically everything that I have been told by former football fans, and far more.  I really should let the man speak for himself, but I can't find the damn Deadspin interview again. 

An excerpt to the book can be found at WPUR's (NPR) website story on Almond and the book.  It really speaks volumes, and, as a person who's had extensive contact with an ex-NFL fan who basically goes up and down the checklist (and often will keep me in check from time to time about content on this blog!) of Almond's grievances, this book will strike home to anyone still with a brain.

But, especially in the era of "EMBRACE DEBATE!!", that brain is becoming harder and harder to come by.  Hence, places like this blog and books like Against Football.

Bunch of Shorter Insane Stuff 9/5

• So the NFL is suspending dozens of players for drugs, domestic violence is out of control, concussions even in the first game last night...  And the NFL decides it wants the public to know it's telling the players...  not to use eyeblack for face paint.  Womp womp.
• Dateline:  Eastern Michigan University.  One of the football team was murdered by Kristopher Pratt, who agreed to Murder 2 as a plea-bargain, but no one else was convicted.  Problem:  Pratt's cousin, Demarko Taylor, has apparently gotten the shit kicked out of him by three other EMU football players -- who are now facing misdemeanor assault charges.  Um...  "Eye for an eye." is supposed to apply to the perpetrator, not his cousin.
• Penn State University is at it again.  In the third year of their unprecedented penalties for their school and football program being a front for at least one pedophile (it still hasn't been made public yet as to if it was, in fact, a ring of prominent PSU donors, as Mark Madden asserted was possible and being investigated shortly after Sandusky and Paterno were exposed), Penn State officials are telling prominent PSU fans to lay off -- having to send a letter not unakin to when my chemistry teacher would say "Say You, Say Now...  Let's Be Friends" to tell them to be civil when posting to boards.  To the Deadspin article, this appears to indicate that PSU alums are still spewing that their football program, the only reason PSU exists, was victimized by a conspiracy.  Never mind the conspiracy which is probably the only reason you have a univerysity, much less a football program.
• Ray MacDonald will play Sunday.  Mission accomplished, for now, by the police.  Happens all the time on every level of football -- one of the many reasons the entire culture needs to be smashed.
• And two by the defending (and, if last night's coronation was any indication, heading to back-to-back (sans drug investigation or someone getting a spine) championships) chumps, the Seadderal Seahags:  The Green Bay Packers started a rookie center last night, Corey Linsey, to which one of the loudest of the Legion of Boom, Bruce Irvin, said he was going to pray for Linsey.
• And this gem, of which we're not sure if it was screwed up by the Seahag Twitter account or by the lady singing the opening National Anthem of the season, Ariana Grande:

good luck & thank u for having me!!! “@Seahawks: The home of the free. And the land of the brave. you tell'em @ArianaGrande #Kickoff2014”
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) September 5, 2014

(It apparently was the Twitter account, according to the Huffington Post. The Hags deleted the original Tweet when the error was discovered, so only Grande's response (above) remains.)