VITO'S VIEWS

“Don’t you see, you’re the cattle and we’re the ranchers,’’ former Dallas Cowboys president Tex Schramm told former NFLPA head Gene Upshaw during the 1987 strike.

Schramm’s comments are worth remembering in light of the controversy over Houston Texans owner Bob McNair saying they can’t let the inmates run the prison during a meeting in New York earlier this month.

Once the comment was included in an ESPN the Magazine story on the meeting, there was a firestorm. The uproar transcended sports and was reported in network TV newscasts.

The Houston players threatened to walk out Friday, although veteran DeAndre Hopkins and rookie D’Onta Foreman were apparently the only ones who did.

Coach Bill O’Brien and general manager Rick Smith were left to clean up the mess with the players and convinced the rest of them to stay for practice. O’Brien then said that Hopkins was taking a “personal day,’’ as if NFL players take personal days during the season unless there is a family emergency.

Continue reading “McNair’s boneheaded comment another unforced NFL ownership error”

Five observations on the seventh weekend of the 2017 NFL season:

1. The number 10,363 will be remembered in pro football history like 73-0 – a number we will never see again.

Joe Thomas played 10,363 consecutive snaps until the streak was snapped Sunday with a triceps injury and ended his season. The shame is he did it for the today’s version of the Cleveland Browns, who are 0-7 and 1-22 the last two years. He should have had a chance to play for the Paul Brown Cleveland Browns.

Now the question is whether Thomas will retire next year or come back from his triceps injury. Whenever he retires, he’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

2. In just his second season, quarterback Carson Wentz of the Philadelphia Eagles is reaching elite status.

Continue reading “Taking a look back at the NFL’s Week 7”

Five things I’ll be looking at in the seventh week of the 2017 NFL season:

1. Can the Patriots shake off their stupor?

It’s not surprising that the New England Patriots-Atlanta Falcons Super Bowl rematch will be in prime time. It is one of the best attractions of the season. Adding an interesting sidelight is the fact the Falcons, who blew a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl, blew a 17-0 halftime lead to Miami last week.

But the surprising thing is that the Patriots come into this game with more issues than the Falcons, and an Atlanta win would be no surprise.

Matt Ryan put up 28 points against the Patriots defense in the Super Bowl and the Patriots defense was better last year. Every quarterback the Patriots have faced this year has thrown for over 300 yards, and Bill Belichick’s offseason moves are being questioned.

Continue reading “Five things to watch: NFL Week 7”

The continued drop in NFL TV ratings has been one of the biggest stories of the first half of the season.

But the drop may not be as big a problem as it first appears, based on an interesting statistic pointed out by NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart on a conference call Friday.

The Oakland Raiders-Kansas City Chiefs game drew an 8.8 rating on CBS Thursday night. The combined rating for the shows on NBC, ABC and Fox was 8.8.

That’s a combined rating of 17.6, meaning that 17.6 percent of all TV sets in the country tuned into network programming.

And 82.4 percent of all TV sets were either turned off or watching cable.

Continue reading “Declining TV ratings could be the new normal for the NFL”

Five observations on the sixth weekend of the 2017 NFL season:

1. The broken collarbone that sidelined Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers last Sunday in the loss to the Minnesota Vikings was not only a shattering blow for the Packers, but for the NFL.

After losing J.J. Watt and Odell Beckham Jr., the NFL can’t afford to lose more stars, especially since TV ratings are declining. The NFL has to do more to protect quarterbacks.

Anthony Barr took a step before hitting Rodgers after he released the ball. The NFL should make it illegal for defenders to hit quarterbacks after they release the ball.

In a quarterback league, the NFL can’t let defenders have free shots at them.

Continue reading “Taking a look back at the NFL’s Week 6”

Donald Trump’s attacks on the NFL don’t seem to be affecting the league’s bottom line, but that isn’t stopping him from making an issue of players kneeling to protest racial injustice.

NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart said Monday that he hadn’t looked at Sunday’s attendance figures, but last week showed that there has been no impact.

Lockhart said the figures are “right within range.’’

Then Trump had a press conference Monday afternoon and said his comments are having an impact.

“The people of our country are very angry at the NFL,’’ he said. “All you have to do is look at the ratings, look at the stadiums. You see empty seats where you never saw them before.’’

Continue reading “Trump’s racist anthem ploy and lies aren’t hurting the NFL”

To quote the famous line from the movie “Cool Hand Luke”: What we have here is a failure to communicate.

At least the NFL apparently didn’t communicate what it meant in the infamous memo from Roger Goodell last Tuesday that gave everyone the impression he had a plan to ask the owners to vote Tuesday, Oct. 17, to mandate the players stand for the national anthem.

The Huffington Post summarized the impression the memo gave with a headline, “NFL kneels to Trump.’’

The impression was that the NFL was caving to Donald Trump, who has called the players to be fired for kneeling during the anthem.

The NFL started to backtrack last Wednesday, when Goodell reached out to NFLPA head De Smith and they issued a joint statement saying Smith and some of the player leaders would also attend the meeting.

Continue reading “Inept NFL office needs to stop blaming others for its anthem mistakes”

Five things I’ll be looking at in the sixth week of the 2017 NFL season:

1. Can the Steelers get their act together?

The Kansas City Chiefs, the league’s only unbeaten team, will be trying to boost their record to 6-0 against the Steelers. But all the chatter is about the Pittsburgh Steelers and how will they recover from the last two weeks.

First, Antonio Brown had his Gatorade bucket meltdown two weeks ago. So it appeared the Steelers tried to compensate last week against the Jacksonville Jaguars. They featured Ben Roethlisberger’s passing against the league’s best pass defense and he threw two Pick Sixes to give the Jaguars the win.

Meanwhile, Le’Veon Bell had just 15 carries against the league’s worst run defense. Roethlisberger said after the game that he didn’t know if he had it anymore. But mid-week, he was saying he has his confidence back and questioned the reporters, saying he’s been playing longer than many reporters have been covering the team.

And coach Mike Tomlin defended their game plan. The Steelers did knock the Chiefs out of the playoffs last year, but appear dysfunctional now. Can the Steelers get their heads back into the game against a good Chiefs’ team? We’ll see.

Continue reading “Five things to watch: NFL Week 6”