The Beckham Jr. Case
Let’s set the proper atmosphere for this case before rendering a verdict. Professional football has become a compulsive behavior activity for many players, fans, owners, and media commentators. Pre and post game shows go on for hours before and after the game. There are television channels which cover nothing besides professional football 24 hrs a day. Betting on football games is a multibillion dollar industry. The player salaries are out of sight. The owner’s profits and franchise worth are 10 times more out of sight. The whole private ownership operation of the NFL teams is almost totally outside the legal system. The Commissioner is hired by the owners to represent the NFL when clearly the sole basis to keep his job is to keep the owners happy. Everything about NFL football these days is so jacked up on purpose to attract even more football fans. It is Donald Trump football version.
In the midst of all this jacked up hype, football games manage to happen on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and sometimes on Saturday for like a half a year. A full one third of game time on TV is advertisements. Most holidays, at most gatherings, the football games attract the biggest conversation and attention. There are so many unpredictable events during a football game that predicting the outcome with any degree of accuracy is virtually impossible unless one of the best team is playing one of the worst, in which case an upset against the odds only occurs sometimes instead of a lot of the time.
Me, I enjoy watching a football game for the theatre of it all and watching all the unexpected things happen right before my eyes. I have learned not to root for teams but just individuals so I don’t get jacked around emotionally by all these unexpected happenings throughout the game. To be fair to persons like myself, who want to watch the game without all the bells and whistles, the advertisements, the endless banal and inane banter before and after the game about all the participants in the game—well, at least anything which happens during the game which detracts from the game should be outlawed. Football is so physically dangerous these days with the players bigger, faster, stronger, better trained, better coached, with internet generated game plans and game adjustments, etc. that individual talent becomes less and less the deciding factor, outside the quarterback.
So finally I get to the Beckham Jr. case. First of all, if we the fans get so compulsively stirred up about the game, imagine how jacked up the players get. Once the players come onto the field any behavior by any players or coaches whose purpose is to rattle the nerves or push opponents over the emotional edge should not be permitted. No taunting of any sort, not with baseball bats, not with verbal insults, not with inappropriate mocking of any sort. When the teams are on the field no chatter except pure football signals should be permitted. These players are trained to play football, there should be no additional talents like being able to ignore the most insulting of taunts or ridicule imaginable as a a requirement to play football.
Once again football gets an exception to other businesses. If there are 25 workers in a confined area who have a job to do, no employer allows any individual to taunt someone to see if they can make that person lose control and and punch them in the nose. People are in the office to get a job done, not play mind games with others to drive them over the edge.
The referees of that game should have put a stop to it immediately, not let it go on the entire game and let the fines and suspensions be figured out later on. In addition, there is no need for any talking between players to go on except verbal signals to teammates about play on the field. Social intercourse of any sort should be eliminated. Just play football. Period. You hear these commentators go on and on about how a football player needs learn how to accept any kind of taunts and ignore them. I don’t agree at all. For one thing, all the players should be concentrating on football and their own performance. If a player is not calling a signal of some sort to fellow players on their team, they should be required to keep their mouth shut or be penalized. My heavens, a lineman cannot make a move to alleviate an itch at the line and similarly, no player should feel free to verbally unnerve another player because they have an emotional desire to do so.
If people want to be entertained by insults they can go watch Don Rickles (who we all like) or Donald Trump (who is serious about his insults). It seems outrageous that football players, besides being good football players, have to put up with all sorts of taunting during the game. Are we there to watch a football game or to see who can taunt another to the extent they go bonkers? I am reminded of the old joke,” how do you tell if a spouse is lying? If their mouth is moving.” In football how should we decide if a player is taunting an opponent? If their mouth is moving to communicate to a player from the other team.
We are wiring all sorts of people up on the job today, including policemen. Maybe we need wire up all the players and we have a replay team to monitor all comments during the game. I guess I am kidding here, but I don’t know why we permit conversation between opposing players when they are on the field during a game. What is the point of allowing that? It has nothing to do with football per se.
So once again, we have another NFL ineptness where a star player gets suspended because the refs did’t do their job, and the league permits non football talk on the field during the game. I think it makes sense enough to simply tell players that when they step on the field, all their attention is on their own performance, and don’t communicate in any way with the opposing players. Just play football. What a novel idea. Maybe not as exciting, but would be pure football. Taunting does not toughen anybody up. It just empowers anti-social behavior. I, for one, just want to watch a football game.
