Is there a more feckless leadership in sports than the one headed by Roger Goodell, the guy who keeps stꦦrangling the golden goose? What would the condition of the NFL be if Goodell actually took good, t𒁏ough-love care of the league?
On Oct. 4, Rams defensive back Jalen Ramsey, a career malcontent who forced a trade from the Jaguars to the Rams by being a steady pain in the rectum, used an NFL game then an NFL facility to sustain a family-matter feud by fighting with Giants receiver Golden Tate.
This worst-foot-forward was met with the Goodell regime’s usual pandering indulgence. The league “reportedly” fined Ramsey $15,000, but made no public announce𝓡ment, as if to protect Ramsey’s feelings and add to the insults that now come attache𒆙d to being a well-comported NFL fan.
A $15,000 fine is laughaꦐble in the face of Ramsey’s $105 million contract, $71 million of it guaranteed. He earned a suspension, and both the NFL and NFLPA, on Tate’s behalf and the sport’s, should have openly condemned Ramsey’s behavior.
Instead, the Goodell regime, load꧅ed with bogus sales claims and capitulation to anti-American social and racial activists, continue to dismiss the right-minded in its shrinking audience as unworthy of its concern.
Sunday night, the Rams are scheduled to play the 49ers on NBC, and I can virtually guarantee that for all the hot air that now weekly flows from Cris Collinsworth, he’ll tip-toe around this latest Ramsey issue —🃏 if he even brings it up. Most network𓂃 NFL announcers have no stomach for certain truths, thus the most offensive are protected as the sport remains in steady decay.
Goodell should have been publicly ouওtraged over what Ramsey pulled during, then after, an NFL game. At least drop a hint with the decent fans who remain that he can occasionally stand on his hin෴d legs.
Instead, the Nero Fiddles League continues on its path to mඣindless, gutless self-destruction.
Gambling ads trying to lure $uckers? You betcha!
In Australia, the combination of COVID shut-ins and increased legal opportunities to bet on sports has led to research showing that one in three males, ages 18-34, have signed on witওh websites to become new gamb𝓰lers — and 79 percent of them have been identified as “experiencing gambling-related harm,” according to the Australian Gambling Research Center.
Here, with the steady promise of making mill🌟ions in exchange for mere pennies, dubious “risk-free” come-ons and “making it rain,” a phrase borrowed from strip joints, how many can now watch a sports event without a bet?
And given that the business of legal gambling is predicated on customers losing their money, wha﷽t happens to such “sports fans” once they go broke or finally ꦓcall it quits? Will they ever watch again?
Or didn’t anyone think about that?
Still, as Fox’s gam🌌bling pitchman, Howie Long,claims, betting on football is “entertaining and educational.”
What is it, 10 years now we’ve been told that red-zone stats and success are essential? Yet no one can tell us if red-zone stats begin on first down, second down, third or fourth. Is fourth-and-8 from the 19 statistically the same as first-and-goal from the 2? If they are 🌠— and I suspect they are — the stats are worthless.
Do clock-beating and often game-winning field goals count as red zone failures? They do! But TV mi▨ndlessly swallows then regurgitates these stats as if they somehow tell a team’s story.
For more than 55 years, Joe Dede was the PSAL’s go-to-guy on game officiating, especially for high𝓀 school football, and prior to that a Division I Ivy League official. He was guided by 87-year-old Vinny Bilotti — who, like Dede, is still vibrant. When Dede wasn’t officiating, he was on the phone — mentoring, fielding complaints explaining it all to coaches and other officials.
Dede, 82, will be saluted by colleagues, friends and family Tuesday, at Rꦅeggiano’s 2 on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island at 5 p.m. Management requ🌜ests that cloth napkins are not to be swiped for use as penalty flags.
Know what would be useful before MLB postseason series? Choose a beat writer from every team’s town and have him or her list the best players to deal with — the♔ extra good guys. Why? Provide a rooting interest based on t🤪he human condition.
Now that’s a good sign
From West Coast buddy, Doug Kelly: The San Jose Sharks draft💙ed forward Ozzy Wiesblatt with the 31st and final fi🐭rst-round pick of this year’s NHL draft.
Wiesblatt is one of five children raised by a single mother who is deaf. Prior to the announcement, Sharks director of amateur scout🔯ing Doug Wilson Jr. delivered the news first in sign language, so Kim White, Wiesblatt’s mother, knew at the same time everyone else did about her son’s selection.
Said Wiesblatt, “That means a ton, especially to my mom an💯d the deaf community in general.”
Le’Ve💖on Bell leaves here with one of the best side stories in Gotham sports history. Last season he frequently complained about being drug-tested “because I hate needles.” His arms and chest, however, ar🐽e covered in tattoos.
Sunday has been declared LeBron James Day throughout Red China. All Nike factories will remain open lat🅺e.
Houston’s Carlos Correa stood at home plate so long to watch his game-ending Game 5 homer versus the Rays, he could’ve been flagged for delay of game. Anyone recall when immodesty, especially the risky kind, was considered a fault, and certainly not something MLB and its TV partners would encourage and pro🅷mote?
Fox’s Washington-Giants on Sunday will include analyst Mark Schlere🌱th, another who has substituted “cut” with long-form silly “sticks his foot in the ground.” O/U is 2. Jets-Dolphins on CBS will follow with the underappreciated, keep-it-tight analyst James Lofton.
Reader Jim Trisuzzi: “When a pitcher throws pitch 59 feet, one that hitsꦰ the dirt, the ball is thrown out and the pitcher issued a new one. On the next pitch, the batter sends a three-hoღpper to short, which arrives presumably scuffed up as least as much as that 59-foot pitch. But that ball stays in play.”
I messed up here Friday, referencing to 1941 Yankee T꧃ommy Henrich as Charlie Heinrich. Wrong first name, wrong spelling of last name.
I don’t yet know what color uniform the Mean Green of North Texas Stat💝e wore Saturday at Middle Tennessee, but I do know that the Mean Green last week wore Nike all black.
Now there’s another social hassle over what’s considered hate-speech. First it was “same sex marriage” — which, having been in one the past 40 years, I never underst🌳ood. Now “sexual preference” has been deemed hateful. But all things considered, I prefer sex to none at all.