All Things in Moderation

NFL Sunday Open Thread

27 Responses

1. 

   Mike, on September 9, 2012 at 9:24 am said:

   Michi:

   You’re a Packers stockholder? That’s too bad … but I guess nobody’s perfect.

   “Bear down, Chicago Bears, make every play clear the way for victory!”

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2. 

   okiegirl, on September 9, 2012 at 10:06 am said:

   That’s funny, Mike.

   No particular pro team I follow except (haha, michi) the Vikings. That’s just because of Adrian Peterson, and now the kicker. And I tend to root for whoever is playing against the Cowboys, but don’t even remember why. Mostly I just like to see a good game.

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3. 

   Michigoose, on September 9, 2012 at 10:34 am said:

   You’re just jealous, Mike! I’d be rooting for the Colts today if they still had Peyton, but as it is I’d like to see Da Bears win.

   And, okie, as I said before, I think I’m a Vikings fan on the sly, too!

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4. 

   Mike, on September 9, 2012 at 11:18 am said:

   Wow, what a crappy 4 minutes from the Bears. A sack, an incompletion, a pick-six, and losing their best cover corner. Guess it is time to watch something else. Tennis, anyone?

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5. 

   Michigoose, on September 9, 2012 at 2:15 pm said:

   Woo hoo! Lions over Rams 27 – 23 with a touchdown in the last 1:45!!

   And, Mike, you aren’t still complaining about the Bears, are you??

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6. 

   yellojkt, on September 9, 2012 at 3:24 pm said:

   Jimmie Fallon’s Neil Young is also incredible. Even funnier is when Bruce Springsteen joins him as ‘Classic Bruce’ and they do some current pop song.

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7. 

   yellojkt, on September 9, 2012 at 5:43 pm said:

   All you football fans do realize that you are just wallowing in progressive elitism according to George Will?

   College football became a national phenomenon because it supposedly served the values of progressivism, in two ways. It exemplified specialization, expertise and scientific management. And it would reconcile the public to the transformation of universities, especially public universities, into something progressivism desired but the public found alien. Replicating industrialism’s division of labor, universities introduced the fragmentation of the old curriculum of moral instruction into increasingly specialized and arcane disciplines.

   {snip}

   Football taught the progressive virtue of subordinating the individual to the collectivity. Inevitably, this led to the cult of one individual, the coach.

   {snip}

   Progressives saw football as training managers for the modern regulatory state.

   It’s a wonder they don’t play The Internationale instead of the National Anthem before every game.

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   • 

     markinaustin, on September 9, 2012 at 8:35 pm said:

     Will is a baseball fan. Baseball gives meaning to life. Football is incomprehensible to him.

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8. 

   Fairlington Blade, on September 9, 2012 at 8:37 pm said:

   Start of bowling league had pushed back the ceviche post, but it’s coming.

   Cheers,

   Paul

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9. 

   Fairlington Blade, on September 9, 2012 at 8:39 pm said:

   Will’s column today was weird. In sum:

   I don’t like college football.

   I don’t like liberals.

   Ergo, liberals are responsible for college football.

   I find it difficult to think even he believed what he was typing.

   BB

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10. 

    Michigoose, on September 9, 2012 at 9:50 pm said:

    Well, the Seahawks lost and the Pack lost. . . but, hey, Peyton rocked Mile-High Stadium tonight!

    Paul, I’ll start adding Nebraska to the Saturday posts. . . although I’ll never really believe that they’re part of the Big Ten! 🙂

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    • 

      ashot, on September 10, 2012 at 7:29 am said:

      although I’ll never really believe that they’re part of the Big Ten!

      Not a banner week of footballf or the Big 1G. Unless, of course, you are a Spartan fan. In which case two weeks and zero touchdowns against the defense. Up next, the not so mighty Irish who always seem to play well against MSU.

      I don’t know what to make of Will’s column. It’s beyond nonsense.

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11. 

    yellojkt, on September 10, 2012 at 4:40 am said:

    I find it difficult to think even he believed what he was typing.

    It borders on self-parody but that level of awareness is beyond Will.

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12. 

    Mike, on September 10, 2012 at 6:19 am said:

    Michi:

    Not much to complain about for the last 55 minutes of the Bears game, except for the breakdown on Indy’s second TD. It’s going to be a busy football night for me on Thursday (USF/RU, Bears/Packers).

    Oh, and Serena is a beast, winning the US Open with her B game.

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13. 

    novahockey, on September 10, 2012 at 7:41 am said:

    Will’s column would have been better had he further developed the “moral equivalence of war” concept. I love football — but I can’t stand the “go to battle with” etc that used.

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14. 

    yellojkt, on September 10, 2012 at 7:44 am said:

    Will’s column would have been better had he further developed the “moral equivalence of war” concept.

    George Carlin did the definitive work on that topic.

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15. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 8:00 am said:

    College players should be paid. College football is multi-billion dollar business where the only people who aren’t paid are the players themselves.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/

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    • 

      markinaustin, on September 10, 2012 at 9:37 am said:

      JNC, I think that item is past its “sell by” date. A university education – tuition, fees, books, room and board, modest living expenses [used to be called “laundry money”] now costs a civilian as much as an average American family makes each year. The schollies are today worth ten times what they were worth 35 years ago, as a result. 80+ football players and 13 male basketball players are producing the revenue not only for themselves at $50K+ per year, but for hundreds of other athletes in money losing sports, and that includes medicals and scholarships for injured athletes.

      Having said that, I would always push the NCAA to urge the schools to provide enough stipend money to make it easy for the kids to get home at semester break and spring break. That used to be a bugaboo for kids recruited cross country – they were alone in the dorms with a few other cross country kids who could not afford to leave at break. That may no longer be the case, thanks to Southwest Airlines, of course.

      Edit: YJ – they have something better than Workers Comp. They keep their schollies and get first rate medical attention.

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16. 

    yellojkt, on September 10, 2012 at 8:31 am said:

    College players should be paid.

    Colleges don’t want the disability liability. As long as student-athletes are volunteers, they have no workman’s comp coverage.

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17. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 9:25 am said:

    Which is precisely why they should be paid.

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18. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 9:43 am said:

    No they don’t Mark. Read the Atlantic article.

    If you want to maintain the idea of amateur athletics in college and argue that they are “student athletes” instead of professionals who are doing an unpaid internship prior to going pro, then there is only one real, non-hypocritical solution:

    Ban all TV broadcasts of college athletic games.

    See also:

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19. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 9:49 am said:

    “markinaustin, on September 10, 2012 at 9:37 am said:

    Edit: YJ – they have something better than Workers Comp. They keep their schollies and get first rate medical attention.”

    “Using the “student-athlete” defense, colleges have compiled a string of victories in liability cases. On the afternoon of October 26, 1974, the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs were playing the Alabama Crimson Tide in Birmingham, Alabama. Kent Waldrep, a TCU running back, carried the ball on a “Red Right 28” sweep toward the Crimson Tide’s sideline, where he was met by a swarm of tacklers. When Waldrep regained consciousness, Bear Bryant, the storied Crimson Tide coach, was standing over his hospital bed. “It was like talking to God, if you’re a young football player,” Waldrep recalled.

    Waldrep was paralyzed: he had lost all movement and feeling below his neck. After nine months of paying his medical bills, Texas Christian refused to pay any more, so the Waldrep family coped for years on dwindling charity. ”

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/4/

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    • 

      markinaustin, on September 10, 2012 at 10:05 am said:

      I don’t know if it is true for all colleges, but I think it is now typical to have medical insurance that provides coverage indefinitely for injuries occurring during college to the athletes. It was not typical in 1972. Maybe didn’t exist.

      I am not impressed by the argument that maintains the entire system must change because of rare incidents. Today most UT athletes actually graduate – although usually not “on-time” in football, and bb players who left early, like KD, are back every summer. Why you don’t consider what they are compensated fair may have to do with concentrating on a few star athletes who could command more than $50K if they were not in college. 99%+ of scholarship college athletes could not make close to $50K per year on the outside, tax free, immediately after HS. Certainly not by playing semi-pro sports, as most cannot ever play pro sports.

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20. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 10:55 am said:

    As a free market advocate, I find the use of a cartel organization to deny the players that are actually doing the work compensation so as to benefit the coaches and other vested interests offensive. The system is rigged to pay everyone except the athletes themselves, who are then subject to disciplinary action with their due process rights circumscribed for accepting any compensation.

    The system is inherently corrupt.

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    • 

      markinaustin, on September 10, 2012 at 1:57 pm said:

      I see that I am out of date on the laundry money. It was permitted until the early 70s. Unbelievably, it was a cost cutting measure to abandon it. A 2011 proposal to bring it back – $2k per academic year – was beaten back by the non-BCS schools. That is insane. $4k per academic year would cover nicely. My oldest daughter had a NMS at OU in the 90s; 5 years, everything the jocks got, plus $200/mo stipend, plus one year in Europe. No reason the schools cannot pay the jocks that much.

      Well, she didn’t get to eat at the training table, of course. tt beats dorm food. I got to eat it sometimes in college as a guest.

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21. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 11:06 am said:

    The other appalling thing is that the $6 billion a year college sports industry is considered a tax exempt non-profit.

    “A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released in 2009 warned that the NCAA was endangering its tax-exempt status as a voluntary educational organization because of the exploding commercialization of NCAA Division I college sports. The CBO estimated that 60 to 80 percent of the money made through NCAA Division I football teams came from just commercial deals and crossed an educational line.”

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-and-march-madness/big-bucks-bracket/#more

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-and-march-madness/

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22. 

    jnc4p, on September 10, 2012 at 11:10 am said:

    The O’Bannon lawsuit should bring matters to a head one way or another:

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/michael_mccann/09/01/obannon-ncaa-lawsuit/index.html

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