The Oakland Raiders are 2-3. The San Francisco 49ers are 0-5. J.J. Watt and Odell Beckham are hurt. Los Angeles hates football – still.
Fortunately, you don't have to care about that. The NFL never stops entertaining you with more and more stares into the abyss.
The Vice President of the United States, such as he is, spent government money to make a disdainful and fraudulent show about players at the San Francisco-Indianapolis game, and then put out a three-year-old tweet to back his appearance.
Reports from several cities indicate that owners have essentially threatened their players to no longer kneel for the anthem, though in true ownership fashion didn't say what would happen to those who disobeyed. Except of course Jerry Jones, who can't keep his mouth shut for a living.
And now a Nevada model has released video of Miami Dolphins offensive line coach Chris Foerster doing lines of cocaine, resulting in his resignation. The model, Kijuana Nige, a.k.a. Starr Sherrod, has said she will do more as a reaction to players being punished by the league. "This s--- easy for me," she said.
Now that's the sport we know and love.
How the NFL lost control of its world is worth a book or two, but it has clearly happened. Every fresh story is a new tire fire, and the league doesn't have enough fingers and toes to plug all the holes. Not even actual football is distracting enough.
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But there we go with real life again. These are bizarre times in America, and the most popular sport is now a magnet for the weird. It is an unintended consequence of the famous Mark Cuban quote about pigs getting fed and hogs getting slaughtered.
But the hog is a thousand feet high and miles wide, so it can take on lots more weird. Knowing as we do our new fascination with shameless opportunism (right, Mikey?), the league is going to have to do just that.