Tag Archives: New England Patriots

Persons

Antonio Brown, an outstanding football player who just can’t seem to get his act together, is much in the news of late — for all the wrong reasons. A warrant for his arrest has been issued lately because allegedly he beat up the driver of a moving van outside his house. Details are sketchy.

Last Fall it appeared he would play football for the Oakland Raiders but his odd behavior resulted in his dismissal from the team. He was later picked up by the New England Patriots and then let go for, again, behavior unacceptable in an adult human. He apparently has a court case ongoing involving possible aggressive behavior toward a former girl friend. And the list goes on.

The talking heads are all in a dither and it seems to be the consensus that this man is a loose canon and needs help — and fast. They all agree, to be sure, that aggravated assault against another human is not acceptable behavior. The same conclusion surfaced when Kansas State and Kansas basketball players got into a brawl at the end of their game recently and one of the players was suspended twelve games for raising a chair apparently in order to hit another player before it was taken away by one of the coaches. In all cases, most reasonable people would agree that this sort of behavior is simply not acceptable.

But why not?

We go along insisting that people should let it all hang out, do their thing, and generally be completely honest with their emotions — if not their actions. If this is so and the basketball player and Antonio Brown enjoy hitting other people why do we now say this cannot be allowed? On the face of it we seem to be inconsistent if not contradictory in our likes and dislikes, not to mention our ethical claims. Either we should allow people to do whatever they want or we should agree that they should not do whatever they want.

Many would say we draw the line at hurting other people. Folks should be allowed to let it all hang out and express their feelings until or unless their behavior involves harm to another person.

But what is “harm”? Physical harm seems straightforward, though there are masochists out there that love to be punished — the harder the better. But generally speaking physical harm is where we draw the line. What about emotional harm — such as bullying, for example? Surely we don’t condone that even though the bully is simply letting it all hang out: he enjoys making other people feel bad. But he is not physically harming anyone. Still, there is damage being done to another person and any sort of damage, whether it be physical or emotional is simply not to be allowed.

If this is then the place where the line is drawn then we can say that we have an ethical principle: one should not harm other people. Persons ought to be respected to the extent that they are persons and as such capable of feeling pain, both physical and emotional. Kant would argue, further, that they as persons they are capable of making moral judgments (whether or not they ever do); thus they ought to be respected by other persons. But in any case, whether  or not we agree with cumbersome Kant, we seem to have arrived at what might be said to be the cornerstone of an ethical system.

And I suggest that we have done just that and in staying this I would add that this lends the lie to the claim that ethics is simply a matter of opinion and feeling: what is good is what we want to do and what is bad are those things we find repulsive. This sort of emotional guide gets us nowhere, whereas the ethical cornerstone we have uncovered — persons are valuable in themselves — allows us to build an ethical system that leads to important conclusions — such as: slavery is wrong; women have the same rights as men; women are entitled to the same rewards in the workplace as their male cohorts who perform the same jobs. And so on. There is a plethora of legitimate ethical claims that stem from our one principle.

And in the process of uncovering those ethical claims we find ourselves thinking about ethics and not simply emoting. Any idiot can emote just as any idiot can take a swing at another person. But it takes a reasonable person to think his or her way through conflict and arrive at a conclusion that can stand up to criticism. That’s what ethics is all about.

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Redemption

One of the more bizarre stories in sports the past few weeks has been the saga of Antonio Brown, a very gifted and self-absorbed wide receiver who plays football in the NFL. He had played for the Pittsburg Steelers for a number of years though at the end of his time there he made it clear that he wanted to be traded, making it impossible for the coaches to want him around. Rumor is that he wanted to be traded to the New England Patriots, the standard for excellent football programs in the NFL — whether you like the team or not. But Pittsburg would not trade him to another team in their division because he has immense talent and they didn’t want to have to figure out how to stop him twice a year. So  he managed to orchestrate a trade to the Oakland Raiders where his behavior became truly bizarre. A recent story on CBS Sports gives us a sense of what Oakland had to deal with and why, eventually, they decided to get rid of him — and trade him to (wait for it) New England. This story centers around Jerry Rice who helped Brown work a deal with the Raiders where he was reported to have signed a contract worth more than $30 million. But it also hints at the various things Brown did to make it impossible for the team to keep him on the roster.

Rice isn’t alone in thinking that Brown becoming a Patriot was the plan from the beginning. On Sunday morning, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that New England offered Pittsburgh a first round pick for Brown before the Steelers traded him to Oakland for third and fifth round picks. Additionally, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported on Sunday that Brown hired social media consultants to help expedite his release from Oakland. As everyone knows, it worked, as Brown was released on Saturday after posting a video that included a private conversation between himself and Raiders head coach Jon Gruden on Friday night.

Earlier in the week, Brown was nearly suspended by Oakland after reportedly starting an altercation with GM Mike Mayock. Brown kicked off last week by sharing Mayock’s letter informing him of recent team fines on social media. All of this came after a preseason that saw Brown miss significant time with frostbitten feet while also fighting with the NFL for the right to use his now illegal helmet.

As I said, it was clear from the beginning that Brown didn’t want to play for the Raiders even though he seemed to say the right things at the right time — even offering a seemingly heartfelt apology to the team and the coaches in an effort to win a place back on the team — before he started trawling social media seeking ways to be traded to another team, preferably the Patriots. He signed with the Patriots within hours after being released by the Raiders. Very interesting!

As suggested in the quotation above, the theory that is floating about in the airwaves among the braintrust that knows all about very little is that Brown orchestrated the entire long drawn-out episode in order to end up with the New England Patriots. If this is so we must give the man credit of some sort, while hoping that perhaps this is the end of his bizarre behavior. But I do wonder if the reasons for his wanting to play for New England have to do with his unconscious desire for structure and discipline in an otherwise directionless life.

Folks like Christopher Lasch have told us a number of times that the current generation suffers from a lack of authority in their lives and that deep down we all crave structure and authority in order to find some sort of psychic balance. I find those arguments compelling and see Brown’s antics in the light of that analysis. On the one hand we have an immensely talented athlete whose life lacks direction and purpose, and on the other hand we have a coach in New England who is known to be a strict disciplinarian and who had reclaimed a number of talented athletes who seemed to have no direction and were given to chronic outbursts and bizarre behavior. Randy Moss was one of these who eventually ended up in the NFL Hall of Fame and was one of the most talented players ever to play the game of football. Could Antonio Brown be craving this sort of redemption? Could he want to be in a place where the line is clearly drawn and he will find some sort of peace of mind in an otherwise out-of-control existence? We shall see.

But if I am right, there may be a lesson  here for us all as we go further down the road to undisciplined out-of-control behavior designed to simply “express ourselves” while we draw attention to ourselves and cry out for someone to finally say “STOP!” Like Antonio Brown, perhaps?

P.S. And this just in — after the above was posted. Brown has been accused of rape and sexual assault by a former female trainer. Stay tuned!!

Outrage!

In the recent NFL playoff game between the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angles Rams a non-call at the end of the game has the sports world wringing its hands and shouting “FOUL!”

With 1:49 to go in the game Drew Breeze, the Saints quarterback threw a pass deep to Tommy Lee Lewis who seemed about to catch the ball within sight of the end zone which would allow the Saints to score a touchdown or run the clock down and kick the game-winning field goal. It seemed a sure thing. But, suddenly out of nowhere, as it seemed, Lewis was blind-sided by Nickell Robert-Coleman, a Rams defensive back. The ball fell to the ground. There were at least three fouls on that play and it was played over and over and over and over again as the world held its breath. But there was no flag! No flag therefore no foul. And the NFL rules do not allow the coach to demand a review of the play in the final two minutes of play. So the Saints settled for a field goal with enough time for the Rams to score one of their own and force the game into overtime where they won.

The airwaves, not to mention the city of New Orleans, were (and still are) full of calls for a replay of the game — or at least the final couple of minutes — which the Commissioner has the power to do. But it is not going to happen because the entertainment train is already at full speed promoting the Super Bowl between the Rams and the New England Patriots. Millions of fans around the world (who care) are dismayed, even outraged. It just was not FAIR!!

Strange, isn’t it? We expect our sports to be fair even though we can look the other way when politicians, for example, commit foul deeds daily. We have a sitting president who actually lost the election by nearly three million votes and who “won” because of an antiquated rule involving the Electoral College which, ironically, was instituted during the eighteenth century to guarantee that an unqualified person would never sit in the highest office in the land. As I say, ironic. And yet few shout “FOUL,” even though it certainly isn’t fair.

And, indeed, we can find innumerable instances of unfair practices going on all around us — people who are rich despite the fact that  they never worked a day in their lives, people who are poor despite the fact that they hold down two jobs at once. We have a Congress that buries its collective head rather than admit that the climate is changing rapidly and will result in countless catastrophes. The government shutdown adversely affects nearly a million people who will have no income until it is over.  It’s just not fair though we don’t hear many, aside from a few outraged bloggers, shouting “FOUL!”

But we expect our sports to be fair and then they are not we scream bloody murder. Strange indeed.

In this case, as a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, I recall a few years back when the New Orleans Saints had bounties on the Vikings in a play-off game; various Saints players awarded their fellows large amounts of money to those  who could cripple their opponent or at least send him to the sidelines for the duration of the game. In fact, Brett Favre, the Minnesota quarterback at the time, was the main target and was so banged up after the game that he almost certainly could not have played in the Super Bowl if the Vikings had won. Which they did not.

So, perhaps, it is Karma? In any event I will not regret the outcome of the recent game and will simply say “Get over it!” Life isn’t fair. Perhaps it should be, but it just isn’t. At any rate, it’s only a game after all.

Money Well Spent?

As one who has complained from time to time about the role the Department of Defense has played in helping mold the minds of Americans into a shape more malleable to those with deep pockets in this country, I was delighted to read “Point After” in this week’s Sports Illustrated (Nov. 16, 2015) that helps me to make my case. I agree that the point of the SI article was not to take the DOD to task. Rather, it was to take the NFL and other sports groups to task for “paid patriotism” at professional sports games. The teams apparently collect millions of dollars every year.

The article mentions that the DOD paid $879,000 last year to the Atlanta Falcons to put on displays of patriotism before and during games. They also paid the New England Patriots $700,000 according to the article. We can assume other teams received similar amounts of money for the same reason. It goes without saying that this is our tax money, the money the Republicans desperately want to keep flowing in the direction of keeping our nation strong, defending us against ….. what? Disloyal football fans?

We all know about the obscene waste of taxpayer money when it comes to the Department of “Defense.” For example, when I was coaching tennis we shelled out a precious $30,000 for two “Omni” tennis courts as an experiment. If we liked them it was said that we would get four more. This was exciting, since we were playing on six weathered lay-kold tennis courts that saw their better days in 1968, though I never really believed we would ever see four more Omni-courts at that price. In any event, the men who were laying the courts told me they were headed to the Offutt Air Force base just outside of Omaha where they were going to put down 15 of those courts for the officers at the base. That’s nearly a quarter of a million of our tax dollars so the military brass could whack a tennis ball back and forth — when they weren’t playing golf on their own 18 hole golf course. But I digress.

As I say, we all know about such cases of waste of tax monies at a time when Congress cannot find a way to balance the national budget and the Republicans will simply not allow anyone to touch a penny of the “Defense” spending.  But let’s reflect on the waste of this money on fly overs and other examples of “paid patriotism” at professional sports games. What are the implications?  For one thing, it leads to jingoism, which is often confused with patriotism. The difference is a love of country that leads to such nonsense as “my country, right or wrong.” True patriotism requires a citizenry at least enlightened enough to question what the government is doing and suggest from time to time that what they are doing, (if they are doing anything at all) is simply wrong. But the “paid patriotism” displays are a form of brain-washing that leads people to leave the game convinced that we have the most powerful and greatest country on earth when, in fact, there is much that needs to be improved both at home and in the way we conduct ourselves on the international stage. We have a penchant in this country for telling the rest of the world how to live when our own house is filled with dirt and broken glass.

So there is much to regret when finding out how our government spends our tax dollars. But it is really not that surprising, given the trend I have pointed out numerous times to dumb down this nation and people it with obedient citizens who will do what they are told and agree that what their government does is always the right thing.

Cheaters Do Win

When I was a small boy back in the Dark Ages one of the bromides I was fed over and over is that “cheaters don’t win.” I believed it as did most of my playmates. But as I have grown older (and more cynical) I have come to realize that cheaters do win. Not only in sports, but also in business and in politics. In fact, it is now considered naive to think that cheating doesn’t win. Success is measured in wins and losses, not how the game is played, as I had been taught.

A recent obvious example is the New England Patriots who are notorious cheaters and who also have one of the most glittering records in all of professional football. They were caught filming their opponents’ practices and deflating footballs so their quarterback could get a better grip on the ball, especially in wet weather. Most recently, after they beat Dallas on Sunday Night Football, Tommy Jackson — a former Denver Bronco linebacker and now a prominent talking head on ESPN — was praising New England for the “subtleties” in their game plan that allows them to win. He was speaking about a play that New England likes to run in which one receiver “picks” off the defender of another receiver thereby allowing the latter to run free and be open for an easy reception. It’s against the rules and New England was penalized twice for it in this particular game. But, Jackson noted, if they run the play ten times and get caught twice that means they are successful eight times. That is one of the subtleties that Jackson admires about the Patriots.

In that same game we were able to watch Greg Hardy, recently back from a four-game suspension for domestic violence against his then girl-friend — whom he hit repeatedly and then threw onto a futon covered with assault weapons. He was found guilty by the courts and the NFL suspended him four games for his actions. Tsk Tsk. Prior to the game he told reporters he would be back “with guns blazing,” an unfortunate choice of words  — words which were echoed by owner Jerry Jones in his delight over having Hardy back on the football field and on his beloved team. In that same interview, after saying that he only wanted to talk about football, Hardy openly “admired” Tom Brady’s beautiful wife whom he “hoped would be at the game, along with her sister.” Terry Bradshaw, bless his soul, excoriated both Hardy and Jones for their remarks and for the fact that the NFL would allow such a player to continue to play football. And his voice was joined by a few others, one of whom pointed out the glaring inconsistency in which the players wear pink to support breast cancer research and yet are involved in so many domestic violence cases. But, on the whole, the football world is happy the man is back “with guns blazing.” He is an amazing football player. But the evidence suggests that he is a horrible person.

Now, Hardy is a cheater with a capital “C.” And he is not only immensely successful, he is also a very wealthy man — though we tend to equate the two things in this culture. New England won the game despite the fact (because of the fact?) that they employed a plan that involved a beach of the rules. Cheating does win.

I am not naive. I know cheating has always gone on in this imperfect world. And cheaters are often, if not always, successful. Shit happens. But one would like to think that more people like Terry Bradshaw would speak out against the practice when it is well known to happen and fewer talking heads like Tommy Jackson would sit before the TV cameras and drool over the New England Patriots and Tom Brady while they speak with admiration about the “subtleties” of a game plan that allows a team to be successful because it knowingly employs tactics that are a breach of the rules of the game.

Deflate-gate

Unless perhaps you live in Ecuador, where such trivial incidents are rightly ignored, you have probably been aware of the controversy surrounding the footballs used in the AFC Championship by the New England Patriots. Eleven of the twelve footballs used in the game were found to be under-inflated by about two pounds, making them easier for the quarterback, who selects the balls before each game, to grip and throw, especially in wet and cold conditions. Each team uses its own footballs, so this apparently gave New England an edge — though they clearly didn’t need one, stomping the Indianapolis Colts in the game by some forty points.

In any event, there has been endless discussion about the incident, making the Super Bowl itself a bit of a sideshow while pundits discuss endlessly the pros-and cons of what they like to call “deflate-gate.” In itself, it’s a tempest in a teapot, but  it became interesting when both the coach and the quarterback denied any knowledge of the fact that the balls used were below the pressure specified by NFL rules. Most experts, including a number of former professional quarterbacks, admit that the coach might not know about the balls, but they all agree that the quarterback must have known, because he handles each ball before the game to make sure it is as he likes it. In a word, the issue has now shifted to the more interesting moral question: who’s lying? It appears to be Tom Brady, the New England quarterback. Indeed, according to many, it must be.

I recall an experiment conducted by a writer for Sports Illustrated years ago with Rod Laver, possibly the best tennis player to have ever lifted a racket. Laver told the reporter that he could detect any changes to his rackets and the reporter challenged him to a test. The reporter placed a small piece of lead tape weighing less than half an ounce on the frame of one of Laver’s rackets and, blindfolded, Laver picked it out of a group of a half-dozen. His rackets were his livelihood. He knew exactly how heavy each one had to be and how tight the strings were as well. Similarly, Brady knew full well that the balls he was using were to his exact specifications. And those specifications were under the limits set by the NFL. But things don’t stop there.

Soon after Brady’s press conference where he denied any knowledge of the fact that rules were broken (no matter how trivial they seem to us) ESPN took a nation-wide poll and it revealed that the vast majority of fans in every state, except Nebraska(!), believe that Brady is telling the truth. Seriously? Is it possible that the majority of people in this country are that blind? It appears so — assuming that the poll was a reliable indicator. Despite the testimony of a number of people of unquestioned credibility, including John Madden, whom fans have always loved and trusted, the majority of people believe that the only man who could be responsible is, in their minds, not responsible. Which now takes us to the next stage of the issue, namely, the stupidity of the average American football fan.

This is therefore no longer about footballs and whether or not they meet NFL specifications. It’s about the willingness of vast numbers of people in this country to believe what they want to believe and ignore the facts that have been clearly set before them. Brady is the only one who could have under-inflated those balls — or had someone do it for him. But this fact does not penetrate the minds of those who cannot open them. Please consider that these are the same people who vote on our next president and the members of Congress. In my mind, that is what makes this issue especially disturbing. It’s not about football. It’s about the inability or unwillingness of so many people to see beyond what they want to see.