New in PJ Media:
Does the Left spoil absolutely everything? Why, yes. All over the country right now, there are young men who dream of playing in the National Football League. The glamor, the glory, the girls, and above all, the gold — the lure is immense. Organized sports are an avenue for young people from poor and modest backgrounds to become fantastically rich and fast, so it’s no wonder that the competition is so very fierce in the major sports leagues. But that hasn’t stopped the Left’s culture of victimhood from entering even here. On Wednesday, an NFL executive likened the NFL scouting combine to a “slave auction.”
So Colin Kaepernick can’t get an NFL job, but his point of view has spread to the highest levels of the league. The woke activist and former quarterback famously likened the NFL draft to a slave auction last fall: “What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic. Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod and examine you searching for any defect that might affect your performance. No boundary respect. No dignity left intact.”
Kaepernick didn’t mention, of course, that the players submit to this treatment voluntarily, as they are aware of the fantastic sums that await them if they make the grade. They aren’t hunted down in the woods by rapacious football player traders who then sell them to NFL owners, who reap all the proceeds from their labors. They aren’t chained up at night or whipped for poor performance. There is no Underground Railroad carrying fugitive NFL players to freedom in areas where football is illegal. Kaepernick was indulging the empty victimhood posturing that is so common these days, and nobody took him seriously outside of his fellow far-Left ideologues.
But Troy Vincent did. Vincent is himself a former NFL player (horror of horrors, the poor man) who is now the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. Yes, that’s right: the NFL has an executive vice president who is so marinated in Leftism that he can’t even see the howling absurdity of his own statements. But his comment only made the news because some NFL owners took umbrage at what he said instead of docilely being an ally and accepting their re-education.
CBS News reported Thursday that “several NFL team owners took offense Wednesday at league meetings when NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent referred to the NFL scouting combine as having characteristics of a ‘slave auction.’”
It seems that Vincent was explaining to the team owners some changes in the scouting process, including “a less tedious medical evaluation process and a closer look at questions teams ask of draft prospects.” The changes have come about because “the combine and other pre-draft evaluations have been criticized for what some consider dehumanizing methods of getting information about players.”
There is more. Read the rest here.
tim gallagher says
No you can’t just enjoy anything these days in our western societies. For the left wing wankers and whingers, everything is terrible. I would have thought that being one of the star athletes in the draft, is a great achievement and proof of what talent they have and of how hard training pays off. It would be the culmination of their efforts. There would be lots of athletes who would love to make it into the draft picks, but aren’t good enough. But, no, the whingers wreck everything. Here in Australia, the AFL, Australian Football league, have some kind of draft and I think, I don’t follow it because I only follow Rugby League football, that it is considered a huge honour to be top draft pick.
milo minderbinder says
tim gallagher,
+1
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the +1, milo. The whingeing and whining never stops with some of these people. As I said, I think out here in Australia, being up at the top of the draft picks for the AFL means that a young player is at the top of the pile and most would consider that a great thing. But we’ll probably end up with this crap out here as well. Most of this nonsense seems to make its way out here, given a little time.
milo minderbinder says
Tim & tgusa, thank you for your comments. We are living in very troubling times and it seems that the situation is only going to get worse.
Dexter Manley played a total of 11 years in the NFL as a Defensive End, 9 years for the former Washington Redskins, now the Washington Commanders, 1 year with the former Phoenix Cardinals, now the Arizona Cardinals and his last year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Dexter Manley couldn’t read, literally, yet he got through Elementary, High School and College (Oklahoma State).
“Cocaine, illiteracy and football could not stop Dexter Manley”
https://www.sbnation.com/2015/6/23/8713273/dexter-manley
I wonder how many Dexter Manley’s there are today in Professional sports?
BTW, the 2022 minimum salary for a 1st year player in the NFL is $660,000. According to the United States Census – https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/median-household-income.html
The median household income in the USA for 2021 was $70,784.
“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.”
– Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the information, milo. No doubt, we are living in weird times. Some people these days will whinge about everything under the Sun. I have watched very little American football, I follow Rugby League football here in Australia, although I have to say that the somersault touchdown scored by Jerome Simpson in the NFL about a decade ago is the single most amazing thing I have ever seen in all the years I have watched various sports. Just such a freakish piece of athleticism. Over the years I have told so many people here in Australia to watch it.
James Lincoln says
Since NFL players started kneeling for the national anthem, the only NFL “action” that I have watched since that time was on December 11th of this year:
The highlight clips of quarterback Brock Purdy beating a team led by Tom Brady, when the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 35–7.
tgusa says
Vincent is competing for the whiner of the year award and he just might win. Troy forgets that the NFL and its players are the entertainment. Americas entertainer class are not very entertaining but many of them are very annoying. He looks in the mirror and sees a slave. Oh brother.
milo minderbinder says
tgusa,
+1
tgusa says
Thanks milo minderbinder. You want some entertainment? I have a winning proposition. Here ya go. A new TV show. American Whiner. Plenty of potential content to be had, lots of pointing out American stupidity, a real money maker. Whats not to like?
wpm says
NFL the best paid “slaves” in the history of the world ,what a joke ,I think most NFL sports players should appreciate a starting pay at the bottom that is over 10 times the average salary of the average American. That they (the players) must be many times bail out of trouble by owners and mangers with baby mamas trouble, ,drugs ,stupid public violence off the field that would get the average American fired from his job and trouble getting a new job. Then they have the brass balls to publicly complain and protest their public opinions and call their bosses “slave owners” something else that would get average Americans fired from their jobs. They are not curing cancer, or inventing products to better the world ,or even protecting us like the military from threats over seas ,they are replaceable, expendable, very highly paid entertainers.
Scotsman48 says
Oh those poor poor wee fellas being treated in such a manner while volunteering their time and body to such a medical experience similar to what happened in Germany by the Nazis all those years ago and then being forced, forced I say, to take a few Million Bucks in mere compensation when they should be treated with so much more respect as having women and cocaine fall at their Feet just aint enough for such suffering wee ”men” as they run around the Locker Rooms Butt naked whipping each with their towels.
Have mercy please…. And OJ is not innocent…