Remove, for a moment, the national anthem knee-takers, the internal warfare between self-interest lobbyist Jerry Jones and feckless Roger Goodell, and all the other issues that plague the NFL before and after games.
None of those matters matter as the game grows more insufferable for intelligent, TV-watching fans and ticket-buying customers to endure, let alone enjoy.
Consider three games that were seen here Sunday afternoon, starting with the Jets at the Buccaneers.
The Bucs’ 67,000-seat stadium was, at best, half full, evidence of consumers expecting very little for a lot of time and money. The first three plays — two called back for penalties — further foretold the game’s future.
Viewers of the CBS telecast were treated like morons.
First, as a mere aside that lacked much relevance, Kevin Harlan told us that wide receiver and kick returner Jeremy Kerley, who twice caught five passes in each of two Jets wins, would not be playing, suspended for four games after a failed drug test.
Soon, Harlan said Bucs receiver Mike Evans, “the NFL’s No. 1 receiver, according to Pro Football Focus, a season ago,” would not be playing because he also was suspended.
So as not to offend a fool — choosing to offend us in Evans’ place — Harlan did not say why Evans was suspended: a full-throttle, blindside attack that furthered a sideline brawl a week earlier.
And when injured Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston repeatedly was shown on the sidelines, neither Harlan nor Rich Gannon mentioned that Winston wasn’t too injured, last week, to ignite the brawl that led to Evans’ suspension.
So this game, a 15-10 slog — with 13 punts and 14 penalties — was pre-afflicted by the misconduct of professionals.
Next, CBS took us to the close of regulation between the Jaguars and a team now known as the Los Angeles Chargers, also played to a half-empty stadium. CBS arrived with 1:33 left in regulation — just in time to witness the game won, then lost, then headed to overtime, not on acts of football, but on acts of misconduct: an end-zone taunting penalty on the Jags, an unnecessary roughness call against the Chargers. What else is new?
Next, on FOX, Giants-49ers played to an empty house. The game’s first two plays led to flags, one for misconduct, a late hit.
Although 0-9, the Niners inexorably performed acts of excessive self-aggrandizement after any reasonably efficient play. Receiver Louis Murphy, upon catching an 8-yard pass, rose, then regally walked forward another 10 yards before flamboyantly dropping the ball in nauseating self-admiration.
What did announcers Chris Myers and Moose Johnston say about that? What do you think they said? Nothing! Again, rather than offend a fool, they offended their audience with the kind of silent pandering that’s forcing the right-headed to abandon this “sport,” as reflected in steadily diminishing TV ratings.
At least as nauseating was the post-play behavior of three Niners defensive backs after Giants receiver Tavarres King was separated from the ball with a brutal shot that reasonably could have left him crippled. The defensive backs didn’t wait to see if King was dead or alive; they went into wild, joyous celebration of the hit. College men. Professionals. Members, as is King, of the NFLPA.
And what did Myers and Johnston say about this? Not a damned thing.
NFL Hall of Famer Elvin Bethea once confessed he no longer watches NFL games as they “look like pro wrestling.” That was in 2003. The game has regressed since then.
Meanwhile, at $62.5 million, it was clear that’s not enough for Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins to tackle anyone, even if well-rested, as he was after being suspended from the previous game for misconduct.
And we’re supposed to have a rooting interest in Jerry Jones versus Roger Goodell, one eager to stake his reputation on a creep such as Ezekiel Elliott, the other who claims that “PSLs are good investments” and invites even more all-about-me behavior — the rehearsed kind — as “spontaneous fun”?
Their ship is sinking and they’re fighting over who gets the suite with the best view of the ocean.
What’s point of WFAN’s PC trio?
Other than creating a politically correct mix, it’s hard to figure how or why WFAN came up with Chris Carlin, Bart Scott and Maggie Gray as the trio to replace Mike Francesa.
Carlin, who began at WFAN in 1995, is a good utility man, a hole-plugger. But if he has the appeal to drive a drive-time show, he’d have shown it by now.
Scott at first had a few good moments in his three years on CBS’ NFL studio show, but last offseason he was jettisoned, deemed expendable.
His uncivil off-field comportment as a Jets linebacker is TV/radio-irrelevant: The worst sports acts are now given the first broadcasting opportunities, then several more. Last month on ESPN-NY radio, Scott mocked Jay Cutler as a diabetic. Again, such “humor” now might help more than hurt.
Gray? I know nothing about her.
On the morning side, the permanent — for now — assignment of Gregg Giannotti to replace Craig Carton as Boomer Esiason’s co-host makes sense. Giannotti is thoughtful and genuinely clever, and already has raised Weekday Boomer’s I’m-with-Carton act above the obligatorily coarse.
Meanwhile, it’s now clear WFAN wants to be done with Francesa, his grandstanding public offer to stay on to rescue “the company” from ruin after Carton’s arrest dismissed as more self-inflating megalomania.
Still, his colossal self-delusions continue. Tuesday he claimed, “I’m a very good horse handicapper.” For all his years of on-air big-race handicapping, no one can recall him touting even one winner — before the race. Around New York’s tracks, where “my seats are on the finish line,” he’s regarded as a bad joke.
Based on his recent we-know-better boastful gambling talk, I sense his next stop will be on former CBS colleague Brent Musburger’s SiriusXM radio gambling show.
Mara in concert with fed-up Giants fans
The notion that Giants co-owner John Mara is only now personally signing and returning missives to the fed-up as a matter of damage control is false. In September, after Odell Beckham Jr.’s urination mime, Mara returned dozens of letters, writing that he shares their disgust.
NCAA Builds Character, continued: Tuesday, Youngstown State beat Franciscan 134-46. Youngstown State attempted 33 3-pointers; three Youngstown State reserves played four minutes or fewer.
President Tweet had won the day — a rarity — until he publicly encouraged the three UCLA shoplifters to publicly thank him for bringing them home from China.
GQ magazine’s selection of social activist and Fidel Castro acolyte Colin Kaepernick as Citizen of the Year might’ve made a fleck of sense if Citizen Kaepernick were registered to vote.