Life Without The NFL Is No Life At All

Monte Pool of the Oakland Tribune, in an eloquent syndicated article this morning, again made the point that so many have made and so few of those in power seem to understand.

Fans, quite frankly, don't care about [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell and [NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice] Smith.

Fans care about having an NFL team nearby or seeing one from their living rooms. They care about tailgating or sitting before bigscreen TVs. They care about the price of season tickets, the price of NFL Sunday Ticket, the price of NFL Network.

They care less about the chiefs in the labor beef than they do about the price of the jersey they'll torch in a moment of outrage.

And sadly, that's where we're at right now. The players squabble amongst themselves and the owners act like wronged schoolchildren. Like when I e-mailed Matthew Futterman of the Wall Street Journal, the NFL is in the process of killing the Golden Goose, and I'm not so certain that there can be a resurrection. 


Pool talks about how quickly sports fans vilified Bears' quarterback Jay Cutler and NBA superstar LeBron James (does The Decision ring a bell?) within just the last six months. The court of public opinion is set to crucify the leadership of the NFL and the NFLPA in 33 days, and just as Cleveland would never take Art Modell back, are NFL fans really going to take a Goodell-led NFL or a Smith-led NFLPA back into their wallets? 


For now, dust off those honey-do lists that have been getting longer for the last four months.