RUNNING JOKE: Sights such as this, the Giants’ David Wilson returning a kickoff for a touchdown during last Sunday’s win over the Saints, would vanish if commissioner Roger Goodell is able to ban kickoffs. (N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg)
How many times do we gotta tell ya? Follow the money!
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell likely was very pleased his suggestion to reduce head injuries by eliminating kickoffs in the league’s games received so much public attention, multi-media debate and even ridicule.
With lawsuits and more-bad-news medical studies being thrown the NFL’s way, it stands to reason the league would be eager to demonstrate its great, better-late-than-never concern for players’ safety.
Although the NFL’s sincerity in trying to reduce the number of players who suffer even temporary brain injuries from concussions must be considered genuine — on-the-level as a compassionate human response — one must be equally aware the league is at least equally eager to minimize its financial liabilities.
After all, it can be successfully argued in court that the NFL is another asbestos-lined factory, that the league systemically places its employees at serious, lasting and clear and present health risks.
The common refrain, “It’s football, and football is a violent game,” can be as strong an argument for the prosecution as it is for the defense.
The proposed kickoff ban — following a rule to make kickoffs shorter, thus less frequently returned — seems to have a public relations rub to it. After all, how many starting quarterbacks have suffered concussions during kickoffs?
Although I don’t doubt Goodell’s sincerity in his angry position in the Saints’ bounty saga, his tough response didn’t hurt future legal defenses that would argue the NFL has aggressively acted to protect its players.
The NFL seems to be in a legal, physical and practical bind. While it can’t eliminate or reduce speed, it can attempt to eliminate “hits,” replacing them with less dangerous below-the-neck tackling, and only tackling. Yet, the dictates of human instinct can’t eliminate a ball carrier or defender from lowering his head at the moment of impact — on almost every play.
Wish I had some good answers — not the elimination of kickoffs — for Goodell and Co. Not sure there are any.
* What TV and stats combine to do to football is what 1-year-olds do to chocolate pudding.
On Sunday night, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was nearly sacked; he scrambled right, then ran 27 yards for a touchdown He’s good at such things, what NBC’s Cris Collinsworth called “escape-ability.”
NBC soon posted a graphic that gave, since 2008, Rodgers’ “rushing” totals. Al Michaels, given to repeating any statistic that appears, repeated these stats, adding that they’re Rodgers’ “rushing” totals.
So what we just saw — and heard from Collinsworth — didn’t matter. We were to think of Rodgers as a running back, as if hundreds of these “rushing” yards weren’t the result of improvised, desperate scrambling.
Econ 101 on the gridiron
There’s nothing so wrong with big-time college sports that several nuclear warheads couldn’t fix. With Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema bolting to take the job at Arkansas, Badgers athletic director and former coach Barry Alvarez will step in to coach against Stanford in the Rose Bowl (ESPN, Jan. 1).
Wisconsin’s board of regents approved payment of $118,500 to Alvarez on top of his AD’s salary to coach the one game, plus he’ll receive a $50,000 bonus should the Badgers win — all in line with Bielema’s contract. Thus, for just under one month’s work, Wisconsin will pay Alvarez a minimum of $203,500.
What does all this have to do with Wisconsin as an institution of advanced education? I haven’t a clue.
* (Anti) Social Media: The NBA has fined the Spurs’ Stephen Jackson $25,000 for threatening the Thunder’s Serge Ibaka in a tweet that read: “Somebody tell serg Abaka. He aint bout dis life. Next time he run up on me im goin in his mouth. That’s a promise.”
Mr. Jackson is 34 years old.
* With tomorrow night’s card from Houston, Larry Merchant ends his regular, on-site association with HBO boxing after 35 years. The former New York Post sports columnist and incorruptible TV boxing presence will still be seen and heard as, according to him, “a senior kibbitzer” on boxing issues.
* Reliable, hype-free ESPN/ABC play-by-player Sean McDonough is back on the job after surgery to correct a neurological condition. … Stop watching; now read this! Graphic during CBS’s Jets-Jags, Sunday: “M. Sanchez: 2 Straight Incompletions.”… Reader John Schiavoni is among several to note ESPN “Bowl Week” is 16 days long. Next year, he wrote, “I’m going to ask to take off Bowl Week.”
Mets’ ESPN Deportes radio deal a ‘grande’ slam
Espn wants a New York baseball team’s radio rights and it’s not going to take “No” for an answer. Not in any language.
ESPN Radio-NY yesterday announced it has purchased Mets’ Spanish-language rights, starting this season, for its 1050-AM ESPN Deportes spot on the dial.
The buy would be another clear signal the bidding and wooing between CBS Radio Network and ESPN Radio for New Yawk-language Yankees and Mets rights will be intense, as both teams’ deals expire with CBS-owned stations (Yankees on WCBS, Mets on WFAN) after this season. In fact, the official recruiting season for Yankees rights begins on Jan. 1. (The Mets’ apparently are bound to an October start.)
Who gets the call on the futures of long-time Yankees radio voices John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman will be an open and secondary issue.
Due to price re-structuring, WCBS currently pays between $12-$15 million per season for Yankees rights — a money-losing deal, according to industry sources. The Mets receive roughly half that from WFAN, now fully owned by CBS.
“The New York Hispanic market is large and sports-minded,” a sports radio businessman recently told The Post. “It can carry its advertising weight. And it’s a largely urban audience, so 1050’s poor night-signal isn’t as harmful.”
Beyond that, Citi Field, this season, will include a radio booth carrying a sign that identifies its inhabitants as employees of ESPN-NY. To, ESPN — and, no doubt, to WFAN — that’s big. And there’s more where that came from.
* Give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for reader Alan Sperber of Manhattan! Last Friday he wrote to predict a sunny residual to the Jets’ season:
They’ve been so bad that ticket-holders will benefit when the Dec. 23 home game against the Chargers will be “flexed” from Sunday night (NBC) to 1 p.m. (CBS).
Three days later, that’s exactly what happened.
More from readers: Tony Barbara of Glen Rock, N.J., wants to know what the heck ESPN’s Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden were talking about Monday night when they referred to “a hybrid” defensive back.
I’ll handle that one, Tony. That’s a DB who averages 41 miles to the gallon.