What the F?

I love professional football but sometimes it feels like the game is the least important product the NFL is selling. The F does stand for football, doesn't it?

This was the week we got the bumble-mumble of that "complicated fella," Aaron Rodgers, who didn't lie because the press didn't catch him lying, and refuses to wear a mask when meeting with the press despite the possible risk to others because he's the pigskin Martin Luther King, Jr., who gets his medical advice from human hemorrhoid Joe Rogan, and who somehow believes everyone is against him despite the fact that pigskin pundits and bobbleheads almost universally came to his defense, focusing their questions not on his lying, selfishness, and stupidity but instead on what the team and the league knew and when they knew it. Also, science is hard.

Okay. Sure. I got a C in Intro to Physics freshman year, so yeah. Science is hard.

I'm hoping Jordan Love throws for 300 yards and 4 TD and the Packers beat the Chiefs this week and we get a full blown quarterback controversy for the Cheeseheads.

I'm hoping the NFL fines Rodgers and the Packers $500,000 each for COVID-19 protocol violations and takes away Green Bay's first round pick in the 2022 draft.

I'm hoping State Farm drops him as a spokesman. 

I'm also hoping the Packers lose the NFC Championship game again this year, but that was going to happen anyway.

Then there's the latest diva drama of Odell Beckham, Jr., erstwhile superstar wide receiver, who had his daddy get him out of a jam in Cleveland. That three-fingered catch seems like it was ten years ago, doesn't it? It was eight years? Whatever. Look, I have no idea what the issues are with or between OBJ and Baker Mayfield but I do know I wouldn't want Beckham, Jr. on the Patriots, even if they had the cap space to afford him. He seems, I don't know, moody. (I like the current New England roster and I feel good rooting for them. I'm in my happy place right now and I just put on some sunscreen and I'd rather not get in the water right now. But thanks for asking.) Maybe OBJ isn't a bad guy. (Seeming to be selfish kind of comes with the gig, after all.) Maybe he's just the latest athlete to confront his professional mortality. (It ends eventually for everyone not named Tom Brady.) Maybe Baker Mayfield should just stick to commercials. (He is arguably better at selling insurance products than winning football games.) Maybe the team's coaches could've helped to manage the situation? No?

Sometimes, everyone's to blame. 

Something that may be of interest, if only to me: Pigskin pundits and bobbleheads raked Bill Belichick for the return on the Stephon Gilmore trade but the Browns front office not only didn't even get a bag of ball for a 1,000-yard wide receiver who is still on the right side of 30, they had to pay him to get rid of him. The Browns were happy to get nothing rather than a 6th round draft pick? Yeesh.

I only hope this one ends like Romeo and Juliet: All are punished.

Given the way Cam Jordan and the Saints have handled Tom Brady and the Buccaneers (in the regular season), I suppose he can say anything he wants to say but, Tom Brady is not the GOAT? Really? According to Jordan, Brady is the "most accomplished ever" in NFL history. (Is "most accomplished" a synonym for "greatest?" Asking for a grammar nerd friend.) But, Brady is not athletic enough to be considered the GOAT (Jordan cites Deion Sanders, Calvin Johnson, and Bo Jackson, among others). In fact, no quarterback, according to Jordan, should be considered the GOAT because they all have dad bods (paraphrasing).

Sorry Steve Young, I really thought that might be where he was going.

Also, given that he isn't athletic, doesn't that actually make the case for Brady as the GOAT? I mean, given that he was lacking that "gift from the gods," isn't winning 7 Super Bowls even more impressive?

All of that is just another day that ends in Y for the NFL. 

Unfortunately, so is the tragic story of Henry Ruggs III. Ruggs killed a young woman while driving his Corvette very, very fast, while very, very drunk. A life was cut short and a family has been unalterably changed, impacted in ways that we can only hope we never have to face. As a result, Ruggs will likely go to prison for a very, very long time. 

Unfortunately, the rich and famous and athletically gifted are just as human as the rest of us. Selfish, stupid, vain, and blind. 

Sometimes, it's hard to get to Sunday.