NFL execs, owners (but not all players) look for relief in Trump

Nothing encouraging ever comes from giving NFL personnel people the ability to air their personal views anonymously, yet access journalists can never resist the attention and clicks that doing so yields. So here we go again. The latest, courtesy Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman, comes from an unnamed team executive, about what the election of Donald Trump means for the NFL.

"Under President [Barack] Obama, the country was intellectual and looked at facts. I think that's why our ratings fell. People read a lot about our scandals or CTE and didn't like what they saw. Under Trump, the country will care less about truth or facts. It'll be [more raw] and brutal. Football will be more of an outlet. We'll go back to liking our violent sports."

That’s a hilariously simplistic narrative, even if it were accurate, yet it doesn’t hold up under even cursory examination. The idea that America was somehow rigorously factual and empathetic in the Obama years might even be more ridiculous than the notion that the culture will be more violent with Trump, which it very well might. But that doesn’t necessarily mean people are going back to embracing the NFL.

This also ignores the fact that, despite scrutiny on the NFL’s issues with brain injuries and domestic violence and a host of other issues, ratings were just fine for most of the Obama presidency. It wasn’t until this season, the very end of his second term, that there was any real problem. Sure, while it’s likely that people will be in search of escapism now that the election is over, there’s little reason to think people turned off by the NFL product will suddenly find it appealing again. Especially when fans know that league executives are pinning their hopes on the country becoming more callous and cynical as the key to growing viewership.

Bob Kraft was at Trump Tower. Plotting, scheming.

Now that the New England Patriots are the official NFL team of Trumpism thanks to the support of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, it only makes sense that owner Bob Kraft would get an audience with the president-elect as well. It’s worth nothing that Kraft has given money to Obama, as well as various other Republicans, so it seems like the Patriots owner is less partisan than he is being cozy with whoever happens to be in power. Either way, safe to say Roger Goodell is soon being labelled an ISIS sympathizer then swiftly deported.

Alex Smith and Josh McCown are the good allies

While Deplorable Tom faces off against Colin Kaepernick in the biggest political quarterback battle of the year, other NFL quarterbacks were getting showing some awareness this week. Browns quarterback Josh McCown travelled to Washington, D.C. along with Andrew Hawkins, Anquan Boldin, Corey Jones, and Malcolm Jenkins to discuss the subject of police brutality with members of Congress. Meanwhile, Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith wore a safety pin during the postgame press conference on Sunday, though he declined to say the gesture was about politics, even though in America the wearing of the pin has been meant to signal a rejection of the racist values of Donald Trump and white nationalists. So it was basically intended to be a different sort of All Lives Matter claim. According to one KC columnist, that’s enough to be considered a powerful statement.

Blair Walsh died of Mike Vanderjagt disease

The Vikings finally cut ties with kicker Blair Walsh, who had missed four field goals and four extra points in nine games this season, which was far beyond acceptable amounts of struggle from a kicker who cost the team a playoff victory by missing a chip shot last season. Instead, they now have Kai Forbath, who missed five field goals in 11 games with Washington and New Orleans in 2015, so clearly everything is fixed.

The AFC North finally gets to be the bad division

For a division that includes the Browns, the AFC North has consistently turned out lots of good teams in recent years. In the last two seasons, and four out of the last five, the AFC North has produced multiple playoff teams. In 2011 and 2014, it had both Wild Cards in the AFC. But this season, depending on how well the Ravens finish, the AFC North may not even have a single 10-win team. AFC North teams are a staggering 7-19-1 in games outside the division. Even if you remove the 0-7 mark from the Browns, that’s still plenty bad. Even the first place Ravens have a 2-4 record outside the division, and now have the privilege of going against the 8-1 Cowboys in Dallas. Even the AFC South isn’t this bad. Dark times, indeed.

Red Zone bathroom pass

NFL watchability ratings are generally pointless. Everyone has access to the same prime time games and their quality typically corresponds to the night they’re broadcast. Sunday night is the best, Monday night is next, then there’s Thursday night. Besides, you don’t need me to tell you, for instance, that Seahawks-Patriots is better than Rams-Jets. 

Instead, here’s my expectation of how many bathroom breaks you might be able to get away with during a slate of games on Sunday. It’s generally going to be more difficult during the early slate because the NFL still insists on frontloading most of their Sunday nights into the early slot. 

I will say that Monday night’s game in Mexico is more necessary viewing than it might have seemed even a few weeks ago since Donald Trump will probably ban sports leagues from holding games there in the future so as to discourage immigration.

Early slate: Buffalo at Cincinnati / Pittsburgh at Cleveland / Baltimore at Dallas / Jacksonville at Detroit / Tennessee at Indianapolis / Tampa Bay at Kansas City / Arizona at Minnesota / Chicago at New York Giants
Expected trips: 1

The games are stacked 8-3 between the afternoon slates, so there likely won’t be many occasions to leave during the early games without missing something, even if the most exciting game is Ravens-Cowboys, which technically is a contest between two first place teams, albeit ones separated by three games in the standings through 10 weeks. The way Pittsburgh is struggling, there’s a very real chance they could be the first team to lose to Cleveland, especially with the type of motivation the Browns got this week.