My NFL Tolerance Is Finally Broken

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

I love football.  Baseball and football are my two big loves, with watching golf a close third.  I loved the NBA at one time, when the Lakers were “Magic” and the great rivalries with people like Larry Byrd, and Doctor J were a part of the game.  Since then, the league has become the league of thugs, with attitudes I want nothing to do with, and arrogance that has killed the game.

I enjoy hockey, and love to watch it live, but it never caught my attention, nor has it ever got me excited as a fan in the same ways baseball and football has.

I am a huge Anaheim Angels fan (I refuse to include L.A. in their name) and I have always seen the Halos as being the good guys in Southern California, and a family-style team that appeals to the folks in Southern California who don’t necessarily consider themselves a part of Los Angeles, or San Diego.  When you go to the games you feel like you are a part of the Angels’ family.  The Rally Monkey has added a fun dimension, and for the most part the players and coaching staffs have always been class acts.

When it comes to football, as a child, my father was a big San Francisco 49ers fan, and my step-dad always leaned towards the Kansas City Chiefs (likely a geographical choice since he grew up in Arkansas), so when I began to watch the NFL the team that appealed to me was the Raiders.  I think it was partially to tick them both off, and partially I liked the gritty bad boy image they portrayed.  I was, after all, a rebellious teen at the time, so the rebellious team that everyone seemed to love to hate seemed to make sense.

Then, they moved to Los Angeles, making them a So Cal team, and that made me an even stronger fan, especially after having the opportunity to go to a handful of games.   Then, after I was discharged from my military service I had the opportunity to meet, and get to know, fellow Navy Veteran Napolean McCallum, who was the Raiders’ 3rd down running back, and special teams guy, at the time.  He and I talked a number of times.  I have autographs on various slips of paper, and a black and white photograph of him running with the ball in his number 41 uniform.  That was enough to solidify my position as an ardent fan of the Raiders, and of the NFL.

My dad says he quit watching football when the Rams came out of the tunnel before a game with their “hands up don’t shoot” pose in place, which happened shortly after the Ferguson riots.  I decided to remain a fan, though I was not happy about what the Rams players had done.

When the kneeling to the National Anthem garbage happened, and my friends were abandoning the NFL in droves, I still remained a fan. 

I love football, and I wasn’t going to let a minority of malcontents ruin the game for me.  Besides, Derek Carr was now the quarterback for the Raiders, and I couldn’t abandon a stand-up, Christian, conservative, hard-working, and very talented player like Carr.  He stood for every National Anthem, with his hand on his heart, and his lips in prayer.  He wears his faith on his sleeve, and has stood firm in what he believes, which is something I think had a lot to do with his broken leg in 2016, killing a magical run for the team, and their chance to go very deep in the playoffs.  Word has it that his offensive line, angry he would not kneel with them during the Star Spangled Banner, let the defense run right by them, which led to the injury.  Carr dished out no blame, and as always was a class-act regarding the whole situation.

The head coach of the Raiders at the time was Jack Del Rio, a man I admire, respect, and appreciated as a head coach.  Like Carr, Del Rio is a hard hitting guy who, while the tough silent type, a Christian and conservative as well (not that I was too worried about the political leanings of my guys, but it was nice to see).   He treated all of the players with one particular equality, work hard and give me results and you will do well.  If you lack in effort or results, you will not do well.  Everything else was not necessarily his concern.

When asked about the kneeling to the National Anthem thing going on while he was coaching the Raiders, “I’ve told [my players] how I feel,” Del Rio said in November 2017, according to ESPN. “I love this country. I think it’s a great honor to be able to play football, coach football for a living, and so my thought is that everybody should pay respect to the flag and stand at attention, and that’s how I feel about it.  But it is America and everybody can make their choice and I’ve made that clear, too. So, anyways, that’s that.”

He didn’t get the job done, as far as Raiders team owner Mark Davis was concerned (I wanted Jack to have a few more seasons, but getting Gruden wasn’t a bad thing, I figured, either), so Jack Del Rio was fired and after a short time in sportscasting, he has landed a coaching job as defensive coordinator with the Washington Redskins.

As the recent garbage started, and as his political leanings got out into the public, things have gotten even more dicey for Coach Del Rio.

Del Rio has made it clear he isn’t onboard with the woke movement to delegitimize the country and everything it stands for.

A Twitter user, who has cowardly hidden his posts from being viewed publicly, lately, tweeted a shot at Del Rio.

“Just found out @coachdelrio is a trump supporter. Wish these old racist would stay off Twitter,” the user wrote, per Fox News.

Del Rio responded with an unapologetically patriotic mic drop.

“I’m 100% for America, if you’re not you can kiss my A$$,” he said.

Meanwhile, the team Del Rio now works for, the Washington Redskins, despite ownership’s past claims they would stand firm and not change the team’s name, have given in to pressure by sponsors, corporate giants and white deconstructionist liberals, and have announced they will be changing the name of the team.  Note that I said nothing about pressure by Native American groups. A survey in 2016 by the Washington Post found 9 out 10 Native Americans don’t find the “Redskins” name offensive.

So, what does the NFL decide to do as pressure mounts, personnel are being attacked for their conservative views, and the idiocy of the deconstruction of America amidst false claims of systemic racism runs amok?

The NFL will play “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing,” which is also known as the black national anthem, before every Week 1 NFL game in the 2020 season, according to ESPN, you know, because of all of the countrywide protests over the fake narrative of racial inequality and police brutality.

According to the ESPN report, the song will be played before “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Senator Ted Cruz went ballistic over this stupidity, launching into his own tirade about it.

The league and the NFL Players Association are also contemplating listing the names of victims of police brutality on uniforms through decals on helmets or patches on jerseys, ESPN reported.

That’s going to be a short list since statistics show that 55% of all people fatally shot in America by the police are white — more than double the number of black (27%) or Hispanic (19%) individuals. Fewer than 1,200 people total are killed by police in a typical year, per major databases like www.killedbypolice.com. Moreover, of all citizens shot by police, 90% are armed with a weapon and between 90 and 95% are attacking the police or another citizen. Fatal police shootings of unarmed citizens who do not actively pose a direct threat — as a result of tragically mistaking a cell phone for a gun, poor decision-making or training, or criminal police misconduct — total about 50 per year.  Being “unarmed” is not always the same thing as “not being a deadly threat.” This was best shown by Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the 2015 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The DOJ report, widely ignored by the media, debunked false reports that Brown had been gunned down for no reason by police officer Darren Wilson, allegedly a trigger-happy racist cop. To the contrary, the investigation revealed the truth that Brown, a 6’4”, 292 pound 18-year-old who had just committed a robbery was shot after he attacked Officer Wilson and grabbed the officer’s gun.

The Daily Caller explains, “Many still mistakenly believe Brown was murdered by the police just as they mistakenly believe the story that Brown raised his hands and said, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” — another bogus claim exposed by Holder’s DOJ investigation. The effect of the media’s false take on Ferguson remains strong, and the enduring myth that Brown was the victim of a racist police shooting has been effectively used to undermine the people’s trust in the police. But that entire narrative was a lie.”