If this were 2019 – or any other year in the 100-season history of the NATIONAL Football League – and we learned that a collection of Tennessee Titans, eager to keep their status atop the AFC South, had arranged to use the field at a local independent school in order to get in some extra work, we would have praised the players as hard-nosed throwbacks and lionized their commitment to the game. Their desire to keep improving would have been exulted as an example for youngsters, and their dedication to the craft would serve as a prime rebuttal to the popular argument that today’s athletes are spoiled, disinterested and overpaid.
But this isn’t 2019. It’s the twisted, surreal 2020 NFL season, with its empty stadiums, daily coronavirus testing and your 1-3 Dallas Cowboys. Okay, so there might be a few bright spots amidst the tumult and tragedy. On September 30, when those zealous Titans gathered to practice a little football at Montgomery Bell Academy, they weren’t heroes. They were superspreading perps in a COVID-19 incubator who might just spoil the fun for all of us.
When the NFL discovered that several members of the Titans organization had tested positive for the virus, it followed protocols and shut down the team’s headquarters until the outbreak could end, and no more positive tests would emerge. Instead of abiding by the rules that were laid out clearly before the season commenced, these Titans decided to sneak away and stage that little pickup practice. Now, it looks like that wasn’t the only one. In fact, there are reports of multiple gatherings that violated league policy and contributed to widespread infection – and big problems for the NFL.
As of Thursday morning, 23 Titans players, staff, coaches and sundry other employees had tested positive for coronavirus. There was no doubt some irresponsible behavior that triggered the outbreak, and the clandestine workout no doubt accelerated the problem. Tennessee was unable to play its game against Pittsburgh on October 4, and it’s unlikely the Titans and Buffalo will be able to square off next Tuesday, the rescheduled game date on which the NFL hopes all the virus problems will have magically disappeared. Those guys don’t seem so heroic now, do they?
The question moving forward is whether the NFL and its commissioner, The Invisible Man, have the guts to do what’s right and really hammer Tennessee for its blatant disregard for established protocols and its crashing selfish approach to being part of the 32-member socialist cartel, er, league. This is every bit as bad as the Patriots’ spying and far worse than deflating footballs, filming opposing sidelines or anything else that can be found in New England’s bag of dirty tricks. This has put the credibility of the whole season in jeopardy, because if Tennessee has to postpone any more games, it’s unlikely they can be made up. The NFL was able to reschedule the Titans-Steelers game, but if the Buffalo tilt is called off, it won’t be easy to come up with a new date. More than likely, the game will just be cancelled. At a time when the league schedule is as unpredictable as the next Kardashian “drama,” (Wednesday Night Football, anyone?) the Titans’ actions are highly damaging.
If the league wanted to do the right thing and teach the Titans and everybody else that this is serious business and that lax, unprincipled behavior won’t be tolerated, it would force Tennessee to forfeit any games moving forward that it cannot play and dock it a first-round draft pick or two. That’s the only way to prove that this is serious business and that those who choose to be cavalier about the rules won’t escape punishment. And real punishment. This can’t end with a meaningless fine or no-dessert-for-a-week-style sentence. Tennessee needs to pay for this, because its inability to do what just about every other team is doing has forced the NFL into a difficult situation, one which could leave it with some serious issues come late December.
What happens if the Titans’ winning percentage of 13 or 14 games is better than that of Indianapolis, its closest current rival in the AFC South and a squad likely to play 16 times? What happens if the Bills miss the playoffs by a half-game because their game with Tennessee is never played? And suppose injuries and the wear-and-tear of a 13-game stretch of games keeps Pittsburgh – which had to move its bye from October 25 to October 4, from the playoffs? This is all serious stuff, and it can impact negatively the league’s credibility, should it come to pass.
The time is now for the other owners – who are famously wary of smacking down other franchises for fear of suffering similar treatment themselves one day – and The Invisible Man to step forward and make Tennessee pay for its poor behavior. From this point on, every game the Titans miss is a forfeit. No scheduling gymnastics. No rearranging everybody else’s seasons because of one team’s misdeeds. The NFL is renowned as an unforgiving confederation. Players who can’t perform get cut. Team weaknesses on the field are exploited mercilessly. Coaches who don’t win are canned. Tennessee decided it didn’t have to abide by the rules. It’s time to make the Titans pay. Dearly.
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EL HOMBRE SEZ: Like it or not, the Trashcan Bangers from south Texas will be playing in their fourth straight ALCS, and it suddenly looks like they have snapped out of their regular-season torpor to play some pretty good baseball. No one knows for sure if the team is using satellite technology, Ouija boards or the Amazing Kreskin to figure out what rivals are doing, but the thought of MLB’s pariahs reaching – and potentially winning – the World Series is almost delicious enough for El Hombre to hope it happens. Almost…It’s sad and disturbing to see so many people delighting in the low ratings for the NBA Finals. Forget that the games are being played during football season and the MLB playoffs. Forget that basketball is the sport that suffers the most – in El Hombre’s humble (shaddup!) opinion – from a lack of fans. The numbers are low, and some people are loving it. Gee, wonder why that is? It couldn’t be that the league is more than 70 percent Black, and that its players’ social activism on behalf of people of color who have been abused over the centuries doesn’t sit well with some folks. That couldn’t be the reason. Must be something else. Any ideas?...You will have to excuse El Hombre’s delight at the travails of the Cowboys, whose 2020 play is enough to make False Face spontaneously combust. Given the team’s 1-3 record and its crummy play that was only saved by some historically boneheaded special teams behavior by Atlanta, perhaps we can find another country willing to adopt it, so that we as a nation don’t have to be embarrassed by its “America’s Team” moniker…When Oklahoma and Texas get together, you can throw out the records. Given the way the teams have played this year, it’s a good idea to throw out the game film, the uniforms, the mascots and just about anything else. El Hombre can’t wait to tune in to that Iowa State-Kansas State Big 12 Championship Game.
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YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? The Sixers’ decision to hire Doc Rivers was a sound one. He is an experienced coach with a winning pedigree and the gravitas to command the respect of the players and the rest of the organization. But in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons he has two players who have yet to demonstrate that winning is their primary goal. Each has refused to do the things necessary to move from talented players to championship teammates. If Rivers can get Embiid to get into top shape and convince Simmons that working to develop a jump shot is not an abandonment of his on-court essence, the Sixers might become truly dangerous. But until those two decide that winning is the most important thing, the Sixers can create an amalgam of Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson and Lenny Wilkens and put it on the bench, and it still won’t matter.
AND ANOTHER THING: El Hombre apologizes (not really) for the second Philadelphia-centered entry, but the recent comments by Phillies managing partner John Middleton demanded a response. In his remarks regarding the decision to “reassign” former GM Matt Klentak – hopefully to a role that has nothing to do with building the team’s roster – Middleton said, “I think the problem the Phillies have had for 100 years is they don’t evaluate talent.” His only hire, Klentak, was proof of that. As Middleton and his “advisors” work to fill the empty GM position, they confront a franchise with a rotten farm system and perhaps the worst bullpen in baseball history. Middleton had better hire someone who knows more about baseball than mathematics, or that century-long evaluation deficit will continue – and he will be contributing to it once again.
-EH-
