When the NFL goes down, when the time arrives to pay

Drew Brees, Quarterback New Orleans Saints-- presently sitting out, waiting for a contract while his team is decimated thanks to an alleged Bounty program-- compares the NFL’s case against his team, to the ‘Iraq has WMDs’ nonsense.

I find this a fascinating use of a political meme by an NFL player.  (Perhaps, the last one was from Pittsburgh running back, Rashard Mendenhall, who tweeted doubts on 9/11 orthodoxy.)

National Football League head, Roger Goodell, worked his way up the ranks of the NFL front-office, becoming Commissioner in 2006.  His objective was to clean up the game, keep it 'family values' Republican (in contrast to the NBA that also started to clean up its act in the time period) and secure public monies for stadiums (pro-growth Republican, but technically, not Republican—stadium money votes are generally losers for Republicans.)

Goodell, keep in mind 2006-07, inherited the Pat Tillman situation, a player the NFL had exploited (there is no other term) in light of keeping those ‘family values’.  In 2007, the NFL, those gladiators, refused to intercede on the government’s attempt to obstruct a clear airing on the death of Pat Tillman, and offer real punishments for the culprits of the PR campaign that surrounded and (re?) murdered the complex personality, Pat Tillman, and the deliberate destruction of evidence, including most especially, a diary Pat kept.  Goodell, the NFL, did nothing like say, that Roman...

(This 2006 SI story on Tillman is a good read on the warrior, our Odysseus.)

  

I am not sure what to make of the science behind the concussion lawsuits, but I get the ramifications.  Few pleasures are like a Sunday afternoon in the Fall with my male friends, eating well—those glorious paleo hot wings, and drinking, talking about the latest atrocity and the doom that awaits as the kids battle it out in the background.  The games aren’t important—if Tebow remains a curiosity, but the wives grant the time out of habit so why give it up?

Yet, this version of the NFL deserves to go down, so it cannot hurt to root for the former players.  

And root for Pat Tillman.