2013 NFL: hypocrisy and softness

It has been a LONG while since I wrote something; nothing really caught my eye deeply enough to ramble about, until yesterday. As almost every Sunday from the beginning of September until the 1st weekend of February I spend a good amount of the day watching football but about 24 hours ago I saw a play that just got me pissed off.

Now let me go a few months back. The NFL has been involved in a HUGE class action lawsuit due to a ton of former players demanding a pile of cash as compensation for the injuries sustained while playing the league. The whole judicial system in the US is a joke (look no further than someone suing for coffee being too hot)  and you could sue anyone at any time for something that never happened, heck you could probably get some cheese off someone you have never met, the players have a point in the fact that the NFL clearly hid a ton of information of the risks of playing football. While I believe you have to be a retard to not know that playing football is inherently dangerous I also believe you are entitled to know the COMPLETE risks of a job beforehand. With that, I believe the players have a point and so does the league. Heck, they paid 765 million dollars to shut down the investigation. For more on this check out the PBS Frontline episode of League of Denial.

This lawsuit without a doubt changed the game, and not in a way I care for. The NFL had make a shitpile of rule changes to make the game "safer" but I say it is nothing more than bullshit and hypocrisy; look no further than the possibility of the season going to 18 games.

There are a lot of injuries in every game, part of it, but they are really scared of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy). While I'm nowhere near qualified to dabble on this, it basically is a messed up brain. It usually happens to people who's daily activities generate an impact on the brain, people such as football players, wrestlers (a notable CTE victim was Chris Benoit, read on him), boxers.

My issue is not against player safety. Heck, I hope they never get injured, but the NFL is taking this shit too damn far. The game is violent by nature and no matter how many rule changes you make, this stuff will keep happening. Why not just be honest with the players and whoever signs up know ALL the risks. Take for instance this hit

It was from yesterdays 49ers-Saints game. Violent? Yes. Hard? Yes. Clean according to the rules? YES. But still it was flagged and nullified a 49ers fumble recover that ultimately cost them the game. This shit really gets me pissed and turned off the product. I want a game where the players decide who wins and loses, not some incompetent refs that decide what is legal and what's a flag. That should be the NFLs job, but they are too damn busy looking at new markets and making money to even give a shit about the integrity of the game.

Personal fouls and pass interference calls are game changers and the Roger Goodell led NFL has done such a poor job to define what is PI or a unnecessary roughness call that you may see the exact same play called both ways by 2 different crews. It's a damn shame to see games go so long because refs are stupid, incompetent, and cant get their shit together

Lets be clear on something, the body was not made to play football. The hit on Brees was totally legal and no matter what the heck you do with helmets they protect the outside of the head but you can't tell me that on this shot his brain didn't have a massive impact against his skull. I hear an expert talk about the brain and to think about it as a egg; you may take care and not hit an egg so the shell wont break, but you can still shake it and mess it up on the inside.

Relating to safety I don't know what you can do, it's not my job to know. But the thing I do know the NFL can be honest with the players when it comes to risks, not make stupid rules that don't do shit to protect players, and actually be clear on what said rules are. I understand that right now their main focus is to make all this bad press go away but there is a limit to what you can do protecting your ass until you look like a puss. 

I get pissed every single game I watch but I keep coming for more, so does most of the audience so I'm not sure if we aren't entirely to blame for the NFL not caring because they know the sport keeps growing and so does the money coming in.

Khakbaz out

Making sense of the Chargers mess

So it’s been a while since I blogged at all, I guess it has to do with being so active on twitter (@MrKhakbaz). After all it is considered a micro-blogging site and in a way it’s a means to talk, share thoughts or just vent on any random topic. So what brought me back? A horrible performance by the San Diego Chargers.

If you follow me on twitter, or on really old posts, you know I’m a huge sports fan, specially the Chargers; historically they have been a pretty crappy all time record (395-388-11, prior to this season), recently they have been “better” yet are one of those franchises that every year it seems they are on the brink of greatness and something gets in the way; whether it be injuries, draft mistakes, a fumble here or a pick there they always come close yet always seem to fail.

Yesterday I heard a ton of stuff on the Chargers demise. Some I thought was right, some I thought was pure bullshit trying to have some cheesy material for people to listen to or to write about. A couple of my favorite sports writers are Colin Cowherd (@ESPN_Colin) and Mike Wilbon (@RealMikeWilbon) have some very interesting points.

Cowherd, while may be a little extremist and someone I don’t always concur with, had the point of “why should I care to talk about the Chargers?”. At first I simply thought “you’re a sports writer, you should talk about them” but then he explained that if the organization didn’t care about the results why should he. He went into more detail talking about how AJ Smith was so full of himself and would never acknowledge that hiring Norv Turner was a mistake from the get go. That is as big a certainty as there is. Smith fired Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 record in 2006, you must expect the replacement to perform the same –maybe not a 14-2 record but at least to be better in the playoffs, right?- move on from 2007 till the present day, Turner has a 11-5, 8-8, 13-3, 9-7 & 8-8. While that is a better overall record than Marty (52-34 vs. 47-33) the context is totally different. Marty took over a team that was laughable while turner took over a 14-2 team!

I understand many of you will not understand what these last numbers mean, let’s do a quick exercise: who is a better coach, Bill Parcells or Wade Phillips? Pretty sure any football fan with half a functioning brain will say Parcells, right? It’s a simple answer, but if you go to the numbers Tuna has a .570 winning percent vs. a .573 by Phillips (which will go higher now that he is with Houston) yet the context is totally different. Parcells took over horrible teams and built them from scratch and won 2 Lombardi Trophy’s while Phillips is considered a defensive genius who has been hired  / upgraded from a specialty coach to a head coach of pretty good teams and done nothing! Sound familiar?

Wilbon talked about how that Chargers are “nappers”. Could not put a better adjective; this goes from owners all the way to the 3^rd string defensive backs, the team has seemed disinterested, not really caring and assuming that eventually the talent they have would be enough to win a couple of games and slide into the playoffs. How has that gone the last couple of years?

This may seem as a Norv Turner bashing post, while to a certain degree it is it also is a Chargers organization bashing. From top to bottom this organization is a joke. From the owners who aren’t willing to spend bucks in complimentary players and expect a economically depleted city to spend cash on a new stadium that will only benefit them! What kind of stupid logic is that? The General Manager is a clown who is not willing to admit his most profound mistake, hiring Turner, who in turn has taken a pretty talented team and turned them into the worst coached, most unprepared team I have seen in years –only comparable to what Jason Garret has done with the Cowboys-. I’m a huge Phillip Rivers fan and believe he has a ton of talent but numbers, in this case, don’t lie; he has gone down in every single category –well, up if you count interceptions- from 2008 where 7.1% of his passes where TDs and in 2009 where 1.9% of his passes where picked off to a 4.6% and 3.4% respectively in 2011.

What happens now? Well, they are 3-3 going into the bye week but regardless of what happens the rest of 2012-13 the Chargers problems run much deeper than a 10-6 or 8-8 record it goes way beyond this. I try to look at the big picture and what happens in the long run, I seriously hope they do bad and eventually fire coaches and the GM –but am not sure it will, should have happened this past offseason-; I know it’s not the way a fan should think that way but I truly think it’s the only way they will finally change things for the better.

I’m not even sure the past 867 words made any sense; I think it was a way for me to make some sense on what happened this past Monday, which is hard to understand. I didn't even mention Peyton Manning in this post, while Denver's return was possible in a big way because of #18, it would have never been possible if it no were for the brutal performance the Chargers put on.

What are your thoughts on the Chargers debacle or your teams current performance?

Khakbaz out!