It was interesting witnessing, in real time, the Twitter mob calling for prayers for Mr. Hamlin. These are the same people who have no problem verbally assaulting any praying Christian who opposes any of their warped agendas. Yet now, praying is a good thing, in fact ESPN devoted many camera angles to Bills players praying for their teammate, as if this is an isolated, solemn event.

As it turns out, to avoid rupturing the fragile sensitivities of some viewers, liberal networks immediately end their broadcasts and never show what happens after almost every game: players from both teams, together, kneeling in prayer and giving thanks they made it through another Sunday relatively whole.

While serving on the USS Midway, I remember two catastrophic, peacetime events with loss of life. In each case, the carrier conducted searches for survivors before continuing on with the mission. And that pales in comparison to those fighting on the ground who witness their buddies being horrifically injured and/or killed. No one on Twitter called for the suspension of battles.

Did anyone on social media call for the suspension of the Afghanistan airlift after the bombing? You know, so that fellow soldiers could mourn? No. As in countless examples, our soldiers carried on their mission and received little genuine concern for their understandable mental health trauma.

In fact very few on Twitter even care that, to this day, we have veterans who are homeless and in need of financial assistance. (In case you wish to donate to a more-than-worthy and effective group that helps veterans in need, please go to Code of Vets.)

But I was dutifully reminded that there is a difference between war and entertainment.

Thanks for the tip.

Yes, there IS a difference. Soldiers are compensated at a very low rate of pay considering the possible risks. Professional football players are offered millions of dollars for their services and unlike soldiers, and can opt out of lucrative contracts any time. Athletes acknowledge the risks and most choose to take the money and assume those risks. Those who will remind us about the difference are clearly acknowledging that those who entertain us are more important than those who keep the nation safe, and let’s also not forget those underpaid police officers whom the Twits are quick to vilify.

As a matter of consistent disclosure, I am a lifelong New England Patriots fan and was watching the Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game because the outcome has a profound effect on our final game of the season, which just happens to be this coming Sunday in Buffalo. Most of those who were commenting on Twitter after the incident were not watching the game, merely reacted to what was “trending”, saw and reacted to #DamarHamlin, and to show what good people they are, decided to donate to his charity that provides Christmas gifts to underprivileged children.

When the game was officially postponed, a GoFundMe for his charity “Chasing M’s” started circulating through social media.

The online toy drive fundraiser was started by Hamlin in 2020 with the then-goal of raising $2,500. Since his collapse, fans have raised more than $3 million as of Tuesday morning.
— WGN 9, 1/3/23

Charity is a good thing, when sincere. Seeing how we’re over a week removed from Christmas, where the hell were these benefactors before Mr. Hamlin’s injury?

As usual, it’s not all about the cause but about participants feeling good about themselves. Again, most of those commenting on social media were not watching the game as it was unfolding and know virtually nothing about the sport, team and players. One Tweet proved that point from one of the platform’s most notorious attention whores.

While making a point to tell others to belatedly donate to the toy drive, Alyssa Milano couldn’t even spell the man’s name correctly. What does that say about her knowledge of the topic and those involved?

There have been many sensational injuries in professional sports over the years, so this sudden concern for putting players first is so fake, especially coming from sports and some social media users. On any given Sunday, local and national sports segments highlight the best “hits” of the day and on YouTube, there are hundreds of video compilations of football collisions and hockey knockouts. In not one of those examples has a game been suspended, no matter how horrific the injury and emotional distress clearly displayed by the players and fans in attendance.

Look up the deadly Dale Earnhardt Daytona 500 crash, the football hit that left Darryl Stingley a quadriplegic, the infamous Joe Theismann leg break, goaltender Clint Malarchuk whose carotid artery and jugular veins were slashed during a hockey game, or the more recent Gordon Hayward ankle-snap heard through the stadium that left players and basketball fans in attendance visually disturbed.

In none of those cases was the race or games suspended or cancelled. In Earnhardt’s, Stingley’s, Malarchuk’s and Theisman’s case, the Internet as we now know it did not yet exist. In Hayward’s case, users on social media generously shared the video of him in justifiable agony. Teammates, in the latter cases, composed themselves as professionals and played on. And as the life-is-more-important game is being played, let’s not leave out the fan who was seriously injured by shards of a broken bat at Fenway Park. The game was resumed and completed.

It’s not clear if the Mensa class in the NFL front office and the Players Association thought through the ramifications of this precedent-setting decision to “suspend” the Bills-Bengals game. This didn’t just affect the two teams on the field and the suddenly-triggered on social media.

There are still five teams in the American Football Conference who, going into the last week of the season, have a chance at making the playoffs and last night’s game could’ve made a difference on whose season may have officially ended, and who will have to face who on Wild Card Weekend and seeding. The questions going forward are is last night’s game going to be replayed, will it be “erased”, and how fair will that be to all the affected teams? Anyone on social media even hinting at these very valid questions was mercilessly descended on like flies on shit.

And lastly, many on Twitter sought to shut down and threaten to “cancel” anyone who brought up anything about Hamlin’s vaccination and/or booster status. Over the last few years, many of the things we were told to ignore as “conspiracy theories” turned out to be true. Given the documented increase in Myocarditis in young, healthy vaccinated males and the many videos showing players dropping on the field, asking if Hamlin was recently boosted is a valid question. Most NFL players were required to get vaccinated and boosted and Buffalo’s own superstar receiver Cole Beasley missed all of last season because he refused to get vaccinated. He’s only played in a few games this season so that topic is even more pertinent within the Bills organization.

So have we now reached that pinnacle moment in professional football where estrogen has overtaken testosterone and emotions have supplanted the toughness the NFL promotes? Is any game now subject to suspension when a player gets hurt and who decides how bad that injury will be to stop a game? Other sports that have longer seasons may survive such instances but these decisions in a sport like football will have ripple effects that can impact teams and careers.

And to have it dictated by the sports-ignorant on social media would be the biggest travesty of all.

UPDATE

Now that the emotion has begun to subside, reality has now set in and the aforementioned precedent has now become the real issue.

Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn was not happy with playoff proposals approved by the NFL’s competition committee on Thursday night. She urged other members of the committee to vote against the approved scenarios in a memo obtained by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham.

“The proper process for making rule change (sic) is in the off-season,” Blackburn wrote. “It is not appropriate to put teams in a position to vote for something that may introduce bias, favor one team over another or impact their own situation when the vote takes place immediately before the playoffs.”

Blackburn’s main issue is that the traditional standard of seeding in this scenario is getting thrown out in the middle of a season.
— Sports Illustrated, 1/6/23

Maybe those who demanded I either take down or rewrite the headline of this post, now take the time to reread what I wrote and maybe see that this wasn’t meant to be insensitive to the injury of Damar Hamlin just because I didn’t join the chorus of emotion over ramifications. The decision made last Monday night soothed the immediacy of emotions of the broadcasters and social media and created the predicted clusterfuck.

The Buffalo Bills are officially out of contention for the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs, as the Kansas City Chiefs and quarterback Patrick Mahomes trounced the Las Vegas Raiders in a 31-13 win at Allegiant Stadium on Saturday to secure home-field advantage and a first-round bye.
— Sports Illustrated, 1/7/23

It turns out, the cancellation had everything to do with how a long-fought season would end for one deserving team, clearly screwed by those in the NFL and NFLPA who should have had leveled heads at a time when they were sorely needed.

The cancellation helped the league avoid late-season logistical nightmares. As for the Bengals, playing 16 games instead of 17 did guarantee them the AFC North title, but it also meant that they no longer had a shot at the No. 1 seed.
— Sporting News, 1/8/23

What would happen in the days to follow was never considered and that’s why we find ourselves where we are now.

There was a time when former professionals from the game were handed the mic in the booth and on the sidelines as their insights were pertinent and borne from experience. Instead, we’re now forced to endure the musings of old, balding men trying to act hip as well as what’s supposed to be female eye-candy, both young and over-the-hill. Few have ever put on football pads, played a competitive down (high heels don’t count as cleats) and their opinions are devoid of real value.

ESPN’s nosedive in ratings and online subscriptions continues as they’ve made a point of being a liberal, politically correct, social justice entity that unfortunately has to segue back into a sports topic; a truly astonishing business model they refuse to abandon despite their plummeting media footprint.

Of the hundreds of qualified sports reporters and former players they could have chosen from, ESPN decided to impose on the nation their latest diversity-in-action project: 29-year-old Sergio Dipp, one of their Deportes reporters, who got his shot on the sideline during the Chargers-Broncos Monday Night Football broadcast, and instead of talking about the game, he (ESPN approved) decided to highlight Broncos head coach Vance Joseph and the “diversity in his background”?

When the predictable blowback quickly arrived via social media, an ego-bruised Dipp just had to respond and the only thing missing was a sad, violin music bed….

We’re not sure if it was an ESL issue, but when the blowback ensued, Dipp took it the wrong way and kinda’ made things worse.

Between the millennial arrogance and ESPN’s ongoing quest to bash our heads in with social issues instead of just sports, it’s a shame that all anyone got from Dipp’s sideline flop was that Broncos’ head coach Vance Joseph is black.

As a side note, ESPN Deportes is as lacking in diversity as is most Mexican television where you mostly see whites like Sergio delivering news, sports coverage, and in their novellas. The women dress like hookers and ESPN is clearly respectful of their cultural, albeit blatantly sexist preferences.

Real insight to look forward to is just another reason why some of us haven’t watched anything on ESPN for months, if not longer, and have no intention of consuming in the foreseeable future.

UPDATE

That “diversity” thing seldom works as a substitute for winning…

Having just completed their first back-to-back losing seasons since the early 1970s, the Denver Broncos fired Vance Joseph on Monday, a day after the team finished 6-10.
— ESPN, 12/31/18

… which after all is most important to the National Football League, their teams and fans, Sergio.

The dumping of Limbaugh was not only as a result of a sloppy smear campaign by the left, but also the pile-on by a partisan NFL owner and player’s association Obamabot, gleeful writers and commentators, a gutless commissioner, and ignorant players. Rush Limbaugh, who hasn’t been on an NFL broadcast in years, was said to be too politically divisive.

But what do you call it when a large number of football viewers change the channel every Sunday when uber-liberal Keith Olbermann graces the Football Night in America broadcast?

That genius of football knowledge, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, is seeking to become a limited partner of the Miami Dolphins. Of course, she’s not politically divisive, and there’s nothing in her past that would show she’s not wholesome. You know, just what the NFL is looking for.

If I may, let’s take the lyrics of one of her songs out of context and see if any quote (accurately attributable) of Limbaugh’s comes close….

They say I’m really sexy,
The boys they wanna sex me.
They always standing next to me,
Always dancing next to me,
Tryin’ a feel my hump, hump.
Lookin’ at my lump, lump.
— Fergie, “My Humps”, Black Eyed Peas

Granted, there are many a mother today that was raisin’ the roof in their cars, bring the kids home from school to “My Humps”, but if the NFL is seeking to cleanse itself of a non-family friendly image, is getting ass thrust in your face by ownership the way to go?

Not just hatin’ on Fergie, how about NFL players like Steelers’ James Farrior who came out and bashed Limbaugh because of the “slavery” misquote. Is he going to take back what he said? Probably not. He’s too much of a man to admit he was suckered into reacting as the left wanted an ignorant black man to react.

Players who said they’d never play on a team Limbaugh owned, surely have no problem playing for an owner who knows they all want to fuck her 100 yards from Sunday. Which owner, who said they felt Limbaugh wasn’t good for the image of the game, can claim that they’ve brought a potential 20 million new fans to his team’s base?

I’m a Patriots fan, but if Rush owned the Rams and their game was on after the Pats game was over, I might watch that game. I’d even be rooting for them.

Now, the whole league sickens me.

Having to endure Olbermann’s mug on my screen is bad enough. Having to deal with social commentary by liberal sports announcers is bad enough. Having to listen to non-football related opinion by clueless players is bad enough. Having to watch President Obama issue some kind of address every other Sunday or Monday night is bad enough.

But being told that people who think like me (and many others) aren’t welcome in the NFL, and can be lied about with impunity is the last straw.

Before my team plays, there is no football. After my team plays, there is no football. I don’t need to support television networks and their celebrity play-by-play analysts. I don’t need to know who sponsored that game’s broadcast. I don’t need to buy any merchandise that carries the NFL logo. I don’t need to give my hard earned dollars to people who lie about others, assassinate their character, and just walk away like nothing ever happened.

Rush Limbaugh never shot anyone at a nightclub, on the street, or in their home. Holier-than-thou NFL players have. Rush Limbaugh never sued his listeners. An NFL owner has sued his own fans. Rush Limbaugh never screwed over his listeners. NFL owners move their teams in the middle of the night and break the hearts of their fans. Rush Limbaugh’s product is worth the reasonable price some choose to pay for premiums. NFL owners charge top dollar for lousy product, yet Rush Limbaugh, and the millions who listen to his show, aren’t good enough for football.

Now that we see what the National Football League really is (and wants to become), maybe it isn’t good enough for us anymore.

Many of the liberals who sealed the deal against Rush are too sophisticated to watch a barbaric exhibition like football. Many of the conservatives who did watch the product known as professional football have now become too sophisticated to subject themselves to the musings and interference of liberal narcissists, fools, and liars.

Personally, I have better things to do.

UPDATE: The Search for the Wikipedia Libelist