There is a lot of reason to be mad at the NFL. Snoop Dogg for the Halftime Show? The dope-smoking loser did a music video where he simulated the assassination of President Trump. And the Black Lives Matters communist propaganda in the endzones, “End Racism” and “It Takes all of Us,” when in fact it was Democrats in America who enslaved people and fought a war to keep them. All the WOKE nonsense that continues to pour out of the NFL experience is in many ways reprehensible. However, like many companies just trying to do what they need to do in a hostile world, to appease the looters and thieves, specifically investment firms like Blackrock who don’t fight with guns but through finance, it is impressive that the NFL once again was able to have a complete season with all the political turmoil that has been going on, specifically Covid. To have a Super Bowl and to end the season entirely with stadiums full of people not socially distancing is quite an achievement when you consider the implications otherwise. Even in China, where Covid was made in a lab and sent to the world to do its work to make the Great Reset happen, the Olympics do not have full fan participation. The forces of evil that have been at work wanted to stop the world completely, and the NFL was indeed a target. Their embrace of WOKE culture allowed them to play their games because the radical left got something out of it they really wanted, advertising for their cultural imperatives. In the minds of the NFL, Snoop Dog was a reasonable concession to give Los Angeles what they wanted so they would drop the mask mandates and all the other garbage and let America have its unique game, a Super Bowl, which just so happens to have my hometown team in it.
While the Cincinnati Bengals lost me a long time ago as a fan, and it would take more than a Super Bowl to win me over because of how terrible the Brown family has run the team over the years, I have been enjoying the NFL in a more rebellious way than usual. I went to a few games this year, specifically in the Club Section, and it was a real treat after two years of Covid politics. It was nice to show up to a mass event with tens of thousands of people again cheering for the home team and to have a hot dog comfortably in the autumn sun. The Covid checks at the entrance weren’t bad in the Club Section; they had their own little thing going on there that wasn’t too intrusive and was speedy. I wasn’t crazy about the new paperless tickets or the all-credit purchases—more of that World Economic Forum garbage from Klaus Schwab that is part of a bigger picture. But overall, the experience was terrific to attend games again with packed stadiums and see how the NFL navigated the WOKE minefield, a very public show. Most companies and organizations fight these battles behind closed doors, but the NFL does it on a prominent stage. Considering that, I was very impressed with how the NFL handled themselves under considerable political pressure. And I am very impressed, as I was last year, to see the NFL deliver a Super Bowl to the American culture when the pressure was to cancel the event and most of the NFL games.
I paid more attention to the NFL these last couple of years not because of Covid but because through it all, my favorite team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had found a way to acquire Tom Brady as the quarterback. It has been fun to expect my team to win every game instead of the drama of wondering if they would win some of them. A tremendous amount of life lessons come out of the game of football that is useful, and it was interesting to watch a 44-year-old quarterback dominate over kids half his age. I enjoyed it while it lasted but ultimately thought it was time to retire, which he did, and has been the talk around the world. It was nice for me to see the Bucs playing on such a large stage with Tom Brady leading the team, and I’ll miss it. But it was also clear to me watching all his games that the NFL didn’t want the aging quarterback to keep playing. They just want to give him his gold jacket and set him off to honor in the museums. And to turn the game over to the young people, who the NFL steers all their efforts toward. The NFL wanted the twenty-something quarterbacks to be the stars, not an older man beating up on little kids. While age may lead to a depleted physical condition, there is nothing like a top mind with years of experience and wisdom. On the football field, that gave Tom Brady too much of an advantage over the younger players, and the NFL clearly was sending him messages to bow out gracefully. I saw the hit to the head in the Rams game, the final game of the year, which bloodied the lip of Brady and was an obvious no-call by the refs as a signal for the quarterback to retire, which he did a few days later. He played well, brought the Bucs back from a significant deficit to send the game to overtime. Not a bad way to end a legendary career.
But when everyone wonders why the political left is suddenly so keen to lower the Covid mandates for masks and other nonsense, they think the truckers in Canada are putting the pressure on. Or polling for the upcoming midterms. I see all that as only the come-latelies. The NFL has really been the only corporation that has managed to fight through the turmoil and present to the world, and specifically the American people who needed to see it most, signs of normality. They were the first to have regular seasons to keep their Super Bowl schedule on track. When Covid hit players, reserves were brought in to cover the games. They moved the schedule around for some games, but mostly the show went on, and it was one of the only aspects of American culture to plow through the political overthrow. And for that, we should give the NFL some credit. Even with all the WOKE challenges they had to comply with, the product on the field pushed through the debates and the ridicule to show all people that life could go on and how it could look. With the NFL staying on schedule, it allowed college football games also to mimic the behavior, which has flowed over into other sports in America. I suspect that if the NFL had not stayed open and had yielded to the pressure politics was putting on it; we might not be seeing now the mask mandates being lifted and the Democrats realizing that the polling on the issue is killing them. Without that contrast in society, people wouldn’t have a point of reference to make any judgments, which has blown the narrative for Covid. Of course, I have been saying all along that Covid was a political attack on our capitalist culture from foreign enemies who fight with banking and not guns. But many people were scared of Covid and believed the government until they didn’t. And the NFL helped people see that people could go to mass gatherings and not die and that maybe the government had been lying to them all along.
Rich Hoffman
The Overmanwarrior 