Maybe Tony Dungy was right. Maybe he was prophetic in saying
he wouldn’t have wanted to deal with Michael Sam and the attendant controversy.
Maybe everyone was right when they said the first gay player was going to be a
distraction for the NFL because it’s only week three and he’s all anybody can
talk about.
There have been so many controversies so far that it’s hard
to remember them all. Football fans, and Americans in general, have had to deal
with the distractions of the multiple reports of shower shenanigans and locker
room leering involving Sam in the Rams’ and Cowboys’ locker room. Not only is
all this a great distraction for people who just want to watch a little
football, but the actions are morally dubious and provoking a firestorm of
debate over the real harm the NFL may be enabling by its actions and inactions.
The worst of this whole circus in the past few weeks has to
be the video. You know it. You may have seen it. It had been the subject of
controversy for a long time and spectators had debated over whether the NFL and
Roger Goodell had actually seen it. Then it leaked last week and the floodgates
opened.
That video turned out to be worse than we thought: Michael
Sam kissing his male boyfriend after getting drafted. Like, with tongue and
everything. The NFL made the whole thing worse by its initial leniency toward
this infraction, dissembling, cover-ups, tone-deaf statements and inconsistent
treatment of other players involved in similar incidents.
Surely this was some of the worst off-field behavior of a
professional football player ever caught on tape. Kids look up to athletes. How
are parents supposed to explain this sort of thing to their children?
The whole Sam thing is a public relations disaster, the
likes of which I have never seen in the National Football League. I just hope
the endless distractions cease and we can get back to watching real football
played by teams like the Vikings, Patriots, Redskins and Ravens.
No comments:
Post a Comment