Dakota Beacon

The ritz and glitz of the National Football League’s 2018 Draft at ATT Stadium in Dallas is in the books.

Appropriately, Commissioner Roger Goodell opened the spectacle but the NFL’s plan to quell overt fan discontent fell flat. The commish was accompanied on stage by Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, and Jason Witten. Nevertheless, Goodell got sacked and he was booed anyway.

So, why is Goodell so unpopular? Answer: He is the point man for the NFL and the NFL has done very little to quash the politicization of the NFL by a few players. The anthem protests are only the latest in a string of divisive political protests over the past several decades. The NFL, the commissioners, and the players are being used. They are being played by the liberal left.

The NFL has been a target of the left for decades. It is not what the NFL has done. It is what the NFL represents. The NFL represents masculinity, strength, talent, rugged individualism, excellence, winning, competition, and love of country – everything leftists, liberals, and progressives hate. The NFL has represented this great American game and the intolerant left cannot stand it. Liberals have attacked the NFL over and over pushing themes like global warming, domestic violence, homophobia, concussions, and demonization of Christians. Check this annual sampling.

-- 2005: “With New Orleans being directly hit by [hurricane Katrina] the most devastating natural disaster to ever hit America, the NFL and Paul Tagliabue…show[ed] zero compassion for the people of New Orleans or the players of the franchise….It almost made you wish Kanye West would have added the NFL to the comment he made about George W. Bush.” This by ESPN’s Scoop Jackson on West saying “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” 12/29/2005

-- 2006: “[A]ll you football junkies readying for your fantasy drafts should do one real-world thing in the next couple of weeks: take two hours to see this movie [‘An Inconvenient Truth’ based on the book by Al Gore]…something you need to see. You don’t want to wake up in 15 years with the earth permanently damaged and huge portions of the earth’s surface underwater, forever.” This written by Peter King of Sports Illustrated as reported by NewsBusters, 7/25/2006

-- 2007: “Scientists told the NFL that Super Bowl XLI would put one million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air – not counting air travel to Miami – so the league planted 3,000 trees around Florida in an attempt to pull at least that much of the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere.” Sports Illustrated, 3/12/2007

-- 2009: “I believe you are an $8 billion organization that has failed in your responsibility to the players. We all know it is a dangerous sport.” Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-D) to Roger Goodell, New York Times, 10/28/2009

-- 2011: “Does Football Have a Future? The NFL and the Concussion Crisis.” The New Yorker. 1/31/2011

-- 2014: “Professional football, perhaps more than any other male team sport, is based on misogyny and homophobia.” – “Michael Sam and the NFL’s Virulent Homophobia.” The Huffington Post, 9/24/2014

-- 2016: “It’s just ridiculous that the same league that prohibits the Dallas [Cowboys] football club from honoring the slain officers in their community with their uniforms stands silent when Kaepernick is dishonoring police officers with what he’s wearing on the field.” This was Billl Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, referring to police-as-pigs socks Kaepernick wore at practice. ESPN, 9/1/2016

-- 2017: “Death of the NFL Inevitable as Middle Class Abandons the Game.” The Chicago Tribune, 9/5/2017

-- 2017: “Exclusive poll: 62% of NFL fans plan to watch less football…we asked specifically if people felt it was wrong for players to kneel during the anthem. Seventy-seven percent said yes.” Yahoo Finance, 9/29/2017

-- 2017: “ESPN Host Compares Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones to a Slave Owner.” The Washington Times. 10/10/2017

-- 2017: “The NFL Is Now One of the Most Divisive Brands in the U.S.” The New York Times. 10/11/2017

-- 2017: “Report: NFL to Bankroll ‘Social Activism Boot Camp’ for Pro Athletes.” The Daily Caller, 10/16/2017

-- 2017: “Backlash: Week 6 of the NFL Reveals Several Nearly Empty Stadiums as Fans Continue to Leave the League.” Breitbart, 10/16/2017

-- 2017: “NFL Owners Won’t Penalize Players for Kneeling During Anthem.” The New York Times, 10/17/2017

So goes the steady drumbeat of anti-NFL partisan political propaganda as the NFL accommodates its critics. And, so goes the NFL’s downward spiral.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).