Sort of three “Controversies” involving the Culture War that have slid into the NFL over the past year.  The first is the religiosity of one Tim Tebow — who sold a slew of jerseys as a Bronco before he started and when everyone who knew anything thought he’d be a dud, ended up winning a few games for the Broncos and getting blown out in a few others — thus getting props to bludgeon the “Secular Progressives” who were pooh-poohing him, was traded to the Jets because the Broncos had picked up Manning because they had an idea that they wanted to try to win a Superbowl — and after selling a slew of Jets jerseys before the season, when it came time to bench the starter, the coach skipped past Tebow to the other qb on the roster because he had an idea that he wanted to win a game even as they were stringing the season out to its conclusion.
By the way… my comments on Tebow… the “Focus on the Family” ad was bothersome mainly just because it violated the network’s stated political ad policy in Superbowl ads,  and set an unfortunate early “ugh” with his playoff tackling of his mom right up against the Snickers ad with the tackling of Betty White — something about hitting older women was weird here — besides that the main problem with Tebow was … he’s not really that good a pro quarterback.

Controversy number two.  Bob Costas made some anti-gun comments in the wake of gun violence — a murder/ suicide by a Kansas City Chief player.  This spews outrage from some quarters — Laura Ingraham on Fox News charges “Shut up and Call Football Games”, a syndicated op-ed newspaper piece suggests that the problem is Costas stepped over the line of the Real World Intruding on the Pure Escapism of Football.  (Never mind if you’re commenting on the disarray of the Kansas City Chiefs or explaining to Fantasy Football players why they shouldn’t play this man you have to allude to the real world.)  Previewing his post-Sandy Hook all out coverage style, Alex Jones came out for the boycotting of NBC and the NFL until they fired this… very talented sports caster.

Controversy number three.  Chris Culliver, and why was he handed a mic again?  Anyway, passing the awareness that I don’t have to look to see that Ingraham probably hasn’t shouted “Shout out and play football” with this controversy… in the end the big do hickey here — football more than any sport in this country is enfused with an evangelical Christian Culture — the 49er players who starred in a “It Gets Better” video didn’t know what they were doing.  I suppose Spectator Sports is nothing if not Identity Politics — see the Tim Tebow fan club — and at its broadest you’re rooting for a team based on your identification with its geographic base — and the 49ers organization pr team would put the script in front of these players because… San Francisco is the gay capital of America.  No one looks good here.  For the sake of pr hypocrisy stubs… Go Ravens, I guess.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2013 at 7:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.