VITO'S VIEWS

A year ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were upbeat about their future while appearing on the “Hard Knocks’’ show.

As it turned out, the optimism was premature. The team fell to 5-11, raising doubts about their future.

And things got worse when Jameis Winston was suspended for the first three games against the New Orleans Saints, defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers.

If they start off 0-3, the season could be in freefall and the jobs of general manager Jason Licht and coach Dirk Koetter could be in jeopardy.

The Tampa Bay Tribune has already reported that of the last 173 teams to start off 0-3, only five have made the playoffs.

Continue reading “Buccaneers will continue to pay for their Winston mistake”

Mark Rypien was obviously a natural at playing golf.

When he came to Washington in 1986, he says he had a 25 handicap and played 75 straight days when it wasn’t raining and got himself down to a 7 handicap.

By 1990, he won the first American Century Celebrity Championship, then won it again in 2014 and will be playing in the tournament in Lake Tahoe the weekend of July 13-15.

Of course, Rypien made a bigger name for himself as an NFL quarterback, winning Super Bowl MVP honors after the 1991 season when the Washington Redskins beat the Buffalo Bills, 37-24.

Unfortunately, like many other former NFL players, Rypien paid a big price for his success in football.

Continue reading “Rypien’s concussion comments are yet another wakeup call for NFL and football in general”

There have been just three quarterbacks to win four or more Super Bowls.

Two of them, Tom Brady and Joe Montana, are usually considered to be the two best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.

The third one, Terry Bradshaw, is usually overlooked because he played on the Pittsburgh Steelers teams of the 1970s with eight other Hall of Famers. They were the only team to win four Super Bowls in a six-year span, the only one to win back-to-back twice and were probably the best team ever.

I was reminded of the way Bradshaw doesn’t get his just due when I was reading a recent O-Zone column on the Jacksonville Jaguars website by John Oesher.

Continue reading “Bradshaw’s Super Bowl greatness still greatly unappreciated”

In Myles Jack’s two-year NFL career, his signature moment is a play whistled dead in the AFC title game in New England last January.

Jack is on the cusp of becoming an NFL star, but unless the Jaguars win a Super Bowl, that play might overshadow the rest of his career.

With 13:53 left in the game, Jack knocked the ball out of Dion Lewis’ hands and recovered the fumble.

He got up and seemingly was going to score a touchdown to put the Jacksonville Jaguars up 27-10 when the officials blew the whistle and ruled he was down.

Jack and the Jaguar Nation vehemently disagree, and the phrase “Myles Jack Wasn’t Down” has become a thing in Jacksonville.

Continue reading “It’s not too early to look ahead to Jaguars’ September revenge match with Patriots”

It has almost been forgotten that the Washington Redskins were once so popular that their success caused Congress to pass a bill forcing the NFL to lift TV blackouts if games were sold out 72 hours before kickoff.

Back in the day, the NFL blacked out home games within a 75-mile radius of the home team even if they were sold out. Even Super Bowls were blacked out in the home city.

That all changed in 1972, when the Redskins hosted two home playoff games and they were blacked out.

Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception that same year was blacked out in Pittsburgh.

But blacking out a game in Pittsburgh was not like blacking out a game in Washington.

Continue reading “End of the Redskins’ famed ticket waiting list is also a cautionary tale”

The origin of the phrase “justice delayed is denied’’ has been lost in the mists of history.

A version of it may go back to William Penn.

But it never seems to go out of style. It certainly describes the NFL’s investigation of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston.

He is still awaiting justice over a groping allegation that became public seven months ago, and only this week learned he will reportedly be suspended for the first three games by the NFL.

That expected announcement is typical of the NFL, suspending him without ruling on the actual accusation, but if Winston didn’t report it he has no defense for violating that league policy.

Continue reading “NFL dragging its heels with the Jameis Winston suspension is a disgrace”

In the era of cable TV, the Internet and social media, we sometimes think there’s never been as much hype in sports as there is these days.

The recent death of Billy Cannon, the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner, is a reminder that even back in the day, players could become larger than life heroes even without today’s hype.

Cannon was one of them.

Playing running back and defensive back, he helped LSU win the national title in 1958 and his 89-yard punt return for a touchdown that helped beat Mississippi, 7-3, in 1959 is still one of the most iconic moments in the history of college football.

Both teams were undefeated and LSU was ranked first and Mississippi third.

Continue reading “Billy Cannon didn’t need the Internet era to be larger than life”

The Aaron Hernandez case is now closed except for the various lawsuits winding their way through the courts, but the fascination with his rise and fall remains.

The book about the case by best-selling author James Patterson (who has a new novel out written with Bill Clinton) and two co-authors came out in January and quickly became a New York Times best seller. CBS did a “48 Hours’’ episode on it. So did the Oxygen cable channel, and the movie rights have also been sold.

Still, all the attention has not resulted in any answers for why Hernandez became a murderer and then committed suicide, which wiped out his conviction because the case was still on appeal.

The authors believe Hernandez killed two other men, but he was acquitted on those charges. He also shot a drug dealer — who was supposedly his best friend — in the eye.

Hernandez shot four people in three separate incidents … and nobody knows why.

Continue reading “Aaron Hernandez case remains a fascinating mystery, perhaps forever”

The NFL owners had a choice to make last week as they grappled with the issue of NFL players kneeling to protest police brutality.

Would they stand with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in the conflict or would they stand with Donald Trump, who received multiple deferments for bone spurs during the Vietnam War and never served in the military?

After the NFL passed its new policy on standing for the national anthem, Sen. Duckworth tweeted a picture of her prosthetic legs and said, “One day my coffin will be draped with our nation’s flag just as it did with my husband’s and brothers. I will always stand on these legs for the flag and the anthem but ALSO my honor to defend people’s right to free speech.’’

Sen. Duckworth isn’t the only veteran who understands the members of the military protect the right of free speech.

Naturally, Trump took the opposite view.

Continue reading “Botched anthem policy shows how much cowardly NFL needs new leadership”

The NFL “Hard Knocks” show is a lot more popular with the fans than the teams.

Many teams don’t like the idea of cameras being in their inner sanctums in camp. They sometimes act as if they were working on The Manhattan Project instead of putting together a football team.

And since NFL Films produces it, there is little chance a team will be embarrassed.

Still the NFL had to put together guidelines for teams that can’t turn down an invitation so they all can’t refuse.

If a team has a new coach, has been on the show in the last 10 years or has been in the playoffs the last two years, they can’t refuse to do the show.

Continue reading “‘Hard Knocks’ producers will have their work cut out making the Browns interesting”