Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
This fall, I’ve been watching with a smirk of vindication as the sports world marveled at the number of black quarterbacks leading the best teams in college and professional football. No less an authority than ESPN recognized this transition from novelty to norm with its series, “The Year of the Black QB.” Here is how… Read more.
Many people have been cheering for Colin Kaepernick to get back into the NFL. This, because they thought he wanted nothing more than to play again but that team owners were blackballing him. But the stunt he pulled yesterday should disabuse everyone of that thought. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s much-anticipated NFL workout… Read more.
To kneel, or not to kneel: that is not the question. The question is whether kneeling during the national anthem does anything to combat police brutality or advance the cause of racial justice. It. Does. Not. What’s more, I challenge anyone to cite a case that demonstrates otherwise. And please, this issue is fraught enough… Read more.
Who says cheaters never prosper…? For the record, here is an excerpt from “NFL Conference Championship,” January 20, 2015, which explains my pick. ____________________ iPINIONS will be ro0ting for the Seahawks! Primarily because, despite being defending champions, they are the underdogs; and I am psychologically disposed to champion the underdog. Indeed, that Wilson, the Seahawks’ relatively… Read more.
Real Football fans will tell you that the most exciting day of the NFL season is Conference Championship Sunday, not Super Bowl Sunday — as casual fans might say. (“Historic NFL Championship Sunday,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 22, 2007) True to form, yesterday’s National Football Conference (NFC) game between the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay… Read more.
The NFL suspended Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for the first two games of the 2014 NFL season on Thursday for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The news comes after Rice got into an altercation with then-fiancée Janay Palmer at an Atlantic City hotel in February. Rice allegedly struck Palmer unconscious while in… Read more.
Michael Sam made history (of sorts) on Saturday when the St. Louis Rams selected him in the seventh and final round of this year’s NFL Draft. But it’s important to keep his selection in context. Here, in this regard, is what I wrote earlier this year, when everyone hailing Sam today was hailing Jason Collins,… Read more.
My advice to the regular refs is to swallow your pride and settle (ASAP!) before you are not only permanently replaced but completely forgotten. (“NFL: Replacement Refs … and the Call,” The iPINIONS Journal, 2012) In the above-quoted commentary I presented a clearly rational case for the NFL to stick with the replacement refs by pointing… Read more.
When NFL owners locked out regular (unionized) referees this summer over pay, pension, and other contract issues, they surely did not anticipate that the talk of the league at this point in the season would be more about bad calls than good plays. This talk came into stark relief on Monday night after a bad… Read more.
I’m not a big Football fan. I spend far more time reading about Football games on Mondays than watching them on Saturdays and Sundays. Black quarterbacks: good enough for the NCAA Nevertheless, as I channel-surfed through college games on Saturday, the number of Black quarterbacks stood out like a yellow flag on the field. After all, I… Read more.
