XPost: rec.sport.football.pro, sac.politics, alt.politics.usa.republican   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, rec.arts.tv   
   From: democrat-criminals@mail.house.gov   
      
   https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/nfl-nbc-choose-to-ignore-aaron-donalds-   
   dirty-behavior/   
      
   How much wood could a woodchuck ignore if a woodchuck could ignore wood?   
      
   Glad you asked.   
      
   The question on many fans’ minds — I count for at least two of them, given   
   my psychological state of late — immediately after Rams superstar   
   defensive lineman Aaron Donald was flagged for trying to choke a Cardinals   
   opponent during their playoff game two Monday nights ago, was simple but   
   significant:   
      
   Would Donald be suspended from Sunday’s game against the Buccaneers?   
      
   After all, he’d been fined $10,300 for trying to strangle Packers   
   offensive lineman Lucas Patrick in Week 12. (Consider the QB who tries to   
   call an audible without a trachea.) And he’d had more than a few prior   
   penalized episodes of not playing nicely with others.   
      
   For an added element, Donald wears a Roger Goodell-issued “Stop Hate”   
   message on the back of his helmet. That certainly would have added some   
   show to the tell.   
      
   So it was just a matter of when the NFL — even with pandering, gutless,   
   selectively blind Goodell at the wheel — would announce its sanctions   
   against Donald.   
      
   But the week passed without a word. Surely, Sunday, in its 1-hour-long,   
   10-contributors Rams-Bucs pregame, NBC would address this, provide us the   
   latest.   
      
   But not a word. We heard, near the top, that Donald will be a major factor   
   due to his greatness. Then, in a pandering, banal “interview” with Mike   
   Tirico, Donald was told that he’s a very special player. Even if he just   
   might be a dirty one. His conspicuous “Post-Play Strangler” instincts   
   never came up.   
      
   Yet, there was time to include — surprise! surprise! — a lighthearted chat   
   with TV’s latest in a series of wrongly presumed favorites, Odell Beckham   
   Jr.   
      
   Then on with the game. And more, “Gee, that Aaron Donald is great” stuff,   
   this time from Cris Collinsworth.   
      
   Only late Saturday afternoon, the day before Donald would play versus the   
   Bucs, did NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweet that Donald had been fined a   
   mere $500 more — $10,800 — for his second assault of a live esophagus.   
      
   That mostly closeted news arrived five days after Donald’s latest oxygen-   
   obstructing episode, as if the NFL didn’t want anyone to know.   
      
   Thus, what would have and should have been near the top of NBC’s pregame   
   show “To Do” list in service to viewers, went totally ignored. Suspension?   
   Goodell’s NFL and TV partner NBC apparently preferred that you forgot the   
   whole thing.   
      
   Oh, and Stop Hate.   
      
   Fox team on fire in Tundra thriller   
   Fox’s 49ers-Packers on Saturday was loaded with strong info, overture to   
   final curtain.   
      
   Before the first play from scrimmage, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman plainly   
   said that this game would be determined by special teams — and that   
   presaged trouble for Green Bay.   
      
   Gin! A blocked field goal and a blocked punt later, the Niners were upset   
   winners.   
      
   As for the final play — a winning Robbie Gould field goal — Buck and   
   Aikman were quick to note that in arctic conditions, holder Mitch   
   Wishnowsky pulled down a high snap and touched it down perfectly. Good   
   catch by all three.   
      
   Pardon the Interpretation: Still can’t decide if the weekend’s games made   
   for great, exciting, comeback football — as we were told — or bad football   
   made exciting by “prevent defenses” among other strategic coaching   
   failures.   
      
   Apparently all NFL players must meet with the approval of NBC’s Cris   
   Collinsworth, as in, “I really like” this guy, and “I’m really impressed”   
   by that guy. Does he ever listen to himself?   
      
   You want to vote Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame? Knock yourself out.   
   Just explain three things:   
      
   1) How was he able to hit 317 home runs between ages 35 and 42?   
      
   2) Why did his head swell to the size of a beach ball then recede to   
   normal size after he retired?   
      
   3) How many clean players were deprived of MLB careers by drug cheats?   
      
   Reader Steve Arendash succinctly captures the Bud Selig/Donald Fehr drug   
   era with this: Sammy Sosa is the only player with three 60-home run   
   seasons. Yet, he never led the league in any of those seasons.   
      
   Voting for PED cheats, and those logically suspected of being cheats,   
   seems a highly rationalized decision to reduce the Hall of Fame to   
   irrelevance, if not infamy.   
      
   And I wouldn’t trust David Ortiz as far as I could throw him.   
      
   CBS’ James Lofton is the Jim Spanarkel of football analysts. Or is   
   Spanarkel the …? Anyway, both are underutilized and unappreciated by shot-   
   callers for speaking applicable common sense.   
      
   Working Niners-Packers for Westwood One Radio, Lofton said that every time   
   a player performs one of these post-play, self-aggrandizing   
   demonstrations, he eats into the play clock before the next play, placing   
   his team in needless risk.   
      
   Was he allowed to say that?   
      
   Every time the Buccaneers played on TV here this season, we were told that   
   their defensive coordinator, Todd Bowles, is highly qualified to be a head   
   coach.   
      
   Yet we saw him as the head coach of the Jets for four seasons, and he   
   often seemed lost and bewildered, especially at crunch time with clock   
   management.   
      
   Dan Fouts, with CBS at the time, said Bowles’ decisions and indecisions   
   left him “flabbergasted.”   
      
   Tough to figure if the Knicks have a talent deficiency or a team   
   deficiency. There doesn’t see to be a plan, a strategy. Every game looks   
   like the spin of a wheel, a collection of drifters, alone together, lots   
   of 3-point shots thrown in.   
      
   Odell is up-front about ‘Me U.’   
   Naturally, Odell Beckham Jr. had to exploit his starting lineups   
   face/voice time to try to steal the spotlight by acting like a jerk. He   
   identified his college as “Him University.” Though he might’ve went with   
   “Me U.”   
      
   He wasn’t going to say LSU, as his college excommunicated him for   
   conspicuously handing out cash to players after a national championship   
   game — the same game after which he crashed the locker-room celebration,   
   stealing the scene from those who played by acting like an attention-   
   addicted jerk.   
      
   NBC, naturally, gave him a look-away pass. Its pregame had already   
   determined for us that we all love him.   
      
   Tennis fans are upset with ESPN. Again. The network has virtually ignored   
   the superb and surprising singles and doubles play of American Danielle   
   Collins at the Australian Open.   
      
   Reader Peter Wunsch: “Was ESPN even aware that it had an American player   
   they could show to an American audience? Or are they clueless?”   
      
   ESPN showed some overnight matches on tape delay, but ignored Collins’.   
      
   But that’s standard ESPN. It doesn’t care about good stories, the wants   
   and needs of the specific audiences it beckons, or the sports it   
   purchases. It cares about big names, and only big names — for good or bad   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)