On Sunday, football took a back seat to NFL oddities
Who says the NFL isn’t exciting?
Every week is a race to see how much stranger the league can become.
Sunday was a particular winner. That was the day of bizarre calls, including one in which the fate of two members of the $75 billion league was decided by a man in a striped shirt shoving an index card between a stick and a ball.
It was a day that one of the league’s revered owners faced allegations of longtime sexual harassment and the use of racial slurs. A day when the most powerful owner in the NFL appeared to minimize those reports and called the alleged harasser “one of the really, really, really outstanding men of football.”
And a day when the reigning NFL hierarchy faced a potential challenge from a new type of owner: an African American rap mogul who wants to hire Colin Kaepernick.
In other words, just another strange day in the 2017 NFL season, in which the actual football takes a back seat.
The Cowboys-Raiders game wasn’t completely decided by an index card, but a huge part of it was. The Raiders appeared to have stopped Dallas on 4th-and-1, but refer-
ee Gene Steratore determined, by whipping out an index card and sliding it down the stick, that the Cowboys had converted by a millimeter. They scored the winning field goal on that drive.
Afterward, a pool reporter waited 15 minutes while Steratore was on the phone — apparently with New York. Maybe the league didn’t like being embarrassed in prime time?
The resulting conversation between the reporter and Steratore sounded like a bad comedy routine:
Q. Why did you use the index card?
A. Didn’t use the card to make the final decision. The final decision was made visually. The card was used as nothing more than a reaffirmation of what was visually done. My decision was visually done based on the look from the pole. Q. How did it reaffirm? A. That was already finished. The ball was touching the pole. I put the card in there and as soon as it touched, it was nothing more than reaffirmation.
The words “reaffirmation” and “visual” were used seven more times in the circular conversation. Good thing it wasn’t a drinking game.
That NFL discussion was almost incomprehensible. But it wasn’t distasteful. That was left for tone-deaf Cowboys owner Jerry Jones after the game in Oakland.
Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson faces a long series of allegations, as detailed in a story in Sports Illustrated, that include paying off women who sued him, using racial slurs, and creating an ongoing culture of sexual harassment with the team. The story came out Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon came the news that Richardson would sell the team.
The reaction of the most powerful man in the NFL? The one who orchestrated the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas, who stood up for domestic abuser Greg Hardy, and who has supported Ezekiel Elliott who has been suspended for domestic violence.
“I’m sad, I’m very sad,” Jones said. “Jerry was one of the really, really, really outstanding men of football that I’ve ever met. And I really admire him. I know that he made it the old-fashioned way: He worked for it. And he took what he made in a short time in pro football and turned it into a great business. And then used that to get the Carolina franchise, so it’s a great story.
“I’m saddened by any of the stories of the things that might have instigated this at this time. He’s a battler; he’s a big man with a big heart. By the way, that’s somebody else’s heart; he’s had a heart transplant.”
“He’d be the first to tell you he’s had a blessed life. But I’m really sad. I want all of those kind of men we could have in the National Football League.”
Translation: NFL owners are the ultimate old boys’ club — rich, mostly white, mostly older men — who treat others however they want. And they want to keep it that way.
Which is why it was intriguing that as soon as news broke that Richardson was selling, rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs announced he wanted to buy the Panthers. Within a short time, Charlotte native Stephen Curry tweeted, “I want in.” And on Monday morning, Colin Kaepernick — whom Combs already said he wanted to hire — added his voice, tweeting, “I want in on the ownership group. Let’s make it happen!”
The value of the Panthers’ franchise is estimated at $2.3 billion. Combs is said to be worth $800 million. It’s a long shot but a fascinating little subplot for a league that suffers from racial concerns and which has no African American owners. (And also fascinating that Kaepernick immediately positioned himself as a member of the ownership group, rather than a player).
All team sales have to be approved by the other NFL owners. I would love to see how Jerry Jones’ billionaires club would react to a serious ownership bid by an African American investor group.
I’m quite sure, given the preponderance of evidence in how the NFL decides most things, it would be an embarrassing, strange process to watch.