Favre Factor Sells Soap on Big-Time Football

The Sky is Crying, and my yard is very soggy this week. Great song, crummy weather. Takes me back to many of those soggy days in Sacramento when the whole county thought the levees would break and flood a good many areas of the city. I can't complain we need the rain. This week with the bad weather and January in full swing I had NFL football and the WWE on my mind. I remembered my old buddy "Hillbilly Jim" Morris who used to call on me in bygone video days from Coliseum Video selling all those highlight packages of WrestleMania and the like. He always had great stories to tell. "Yep, one big soap opera for big guys and little guys with moms even hanging out. Let me tell you, a lot of those blows were very real. I didn't fake a broken leg and bad back from square dancin' in those arenas."  I miss Jim, and hope he's doing well.

As I watched the Dallas Cowboys getting Napoleoned Blown Apart by the Minnesota Vikings, I was really shocked. I thought for sure the Cowboys were a lock to play in the Super Bowl. I thought the Jerry Jones tribute to the NFL in the form of a giant stadium would be the ticket. Well, the game will not be played at the new Palace de Pigskin in Texas, but with all that money invested in an NFL crown jewel I thought all that tribute investment would be worth something, but I underestimated all that advertising revenue from all those Brett Favre lovers and haters out in television land. The Cowboys were the hot team driving the Eagles out of Texas, and out of the playoffs with more authority than a Roger Goodell suspension on players for bad behavior, but they played like the St. Louis Lambs on the Metrodome turf this past weekend.

Brett Favre sure looked good! 

In the NFL there are so few positive compelling human stories to punctuate the games, only the constant parade of embarrassing indiscretions and violent acts for weekly human interest grist. The exception to this police line-up parade is the soap opera called Brett Favre, which shines so bright as to dim all other stories. Brett has been the golden boy of the game for the past two decades. He has virtually every career passing record the NFL keeps track of. He has been the kid with all that exuberance, determination and flair who gained a championship in the mid 1990s. He has been the middle aged warrior who fought through pain (and pain killers) on less than great teams to soldier on  for that one last championship. He was the son who valiantly played the game of his life two days after his father had suddenly died, and on the national stage for Monday Night Football to boot. He is now the grizzled veteran who still has game, and ponders retirement every off-season for the past six years only to suit up for one last quest. He is Galahad, or Ivanhoe, or Lancelot. He is big money for the NFL.

How 'bout them Cowboys? Brett Favre sure looked good!

Now I'm not saying the games are fixed in the NFL, but most of the big ones sure seem to work out in an unusually preordained fashion. I have been suspicious of big game arrangements since Gary Anderson of the Minnesota Vikings missed a 38 yard field goal in the Championship game in 1999 when the Minnesota Vikings ultimately lost to the Atlanta Falcons.

Consider, Gary Anderson was a veteran kicker, and for the whole season indoors as well as outdoors had not missed a field goal or extra point try up to his kick attempt to win the NFC Championship game. He was indoors at the comfy confines of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. A good kick with 5 minutes remaining seals the deal. It is not as though this kick saves the Vikings from the grasp of defeat with no time remaining, or other imagined big pressure situations that might cause a nerve or two to pinch at an inopportune nanosecond. Well, the story is ancient history, and only comes up in a strange bit of memory haze when you ponder the end of the San Diego Chargers season.

Nate Kaeding definitely moved Gary Anderson off the the old how-in-the-fuck-could-he-miss-that-kick perch football geeks have been pondering for more than a decade now. Nate (the not so great in the playoffs) Kaeding has personally removed the Chagers from the playoffs twice, and both times against the New York Jets.  Could that really be a coincidence?

I also have a hard time believing that either of these two placekickers choked. When you kick at the highest level of the sport, and are considered "money" by everyone in the stadium, choking just does not come into the equation. Nor does money for the player, when you get right down to it. These NFL players are currently paid in the top one percent of all earners in America. Even kickers.

So if these guys make so much money why throw games?

The first thing that might pop into the brain upon reflecting over the above question might be gamblers. If a person got into a very bad situation and owed big bucks to people who really value seeing their money come in on schedule this could be a possibility. But you never see this with players today in the big leagues. Whether it is the MLB players, the NBA players, the NHL players or the NFL players you just don't see them in those circumstances while they are playing. They make too much money to be bought off.

We have read about the NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, being tied  to the mob over his betting on NBA games that he officiated. And there is plenty of outrage from fans around the country about the obvious favoritism shown to certain teams and stars by the officials in the NBA. Sports Illustrated ran a column by Phil Taylor that makes a good case that the NBA has a very big credibility problem on its hands, but nobody seems to care. Of course, (and I could be wrong) I am not even sure if anyone outside of Los Angeles, Cleveland and Boston even bothers to watch NBA games anymore.

College football and college basketball have been rocked by betting scandals every decade going back to the 1940s. Always with players who earn nothing while packed stadiums, and big money media contracts heap dough on the NCAA and the few select top team schools.

Baseball has had its share of gambling problems in the past with Pete Rose, and a long time ago with the Chicago White Sox- Black Sox fix of the 1919 World Series. But Pete Rose was a manager who gambled on games not fixed them, and players back in the World War I era earned no money to speak of, thus becoming easy targets for the gambling interests to persuade.

Most of the focus over the 2009 MLB playoffs were over a very high number of really bad calls umpires made at critical junctures during several games. Once again, the lowest paid people on the field making their presence known in determining the outcome of big games. In the baseball playoffs and World Series those bad calls might have been simple bargaining leverage tactics in the ongoing contract negotiations between their Union members and the MLB power brokers. 

Refereeing is a huge issue in all sports today because the dollars involved are so great, and the people making the calls earn very little in comparison to the athletes they judge on the respective fields of play. But, looking  back at the NFL playoffs this past weekend the refereeing was really a non-factor in all the games. Yes, the Chargers were penalized twice as often, and for far more yardage than the Jets, but the calls for bonehead Charger player actions were certainly all merited.

Officials could have been in on securing the deal in San Diego, and did just enough to make sure the fair-weather team did not get too far out ahead. It's not as though officials have not recently played a huge role in all but ensuring a victory for the chosen team in the NFL. Two words are all I need to type to bring back the faded memory of one franchise getting the friendly push to the top while the other franchise was getting the not so friendly nudge off the cliff. Tuck Rule. Even with the Tuck Rule fiasco, the officials ruled one way on field before being overturned from the booth.  

When humongous amounts of dollars are at stake it gets harder and harder to believe that many games are on the level these days. When you have a business monopoly the only real goal is to make money for the business. Fairness, ethics, morals and all that other stuff are for people, not corporate monopolies. How do you make more money  when you have the same number of seats to be sold at the same number of stadiums the same number of weeks every year? You need higher television and other media ratings to go after broadcast rights and advertisers for more dollars. You have to make your product compelling and appeal to the markets with the highest density of people with the highest average incomes to match your investment partners targeted audiences.

Which game offers the most must see potential? Colts-Saints? Colts-Vikings? Jets-Saints? No real drama in any of those match-ups. In two out of the three the quarterback match-ups would be fun to watch, but not compelling. From my point of view it has had to be the Jets against the Vikings all along. Did I mention the Jets got into the postseason by winning the regular season final two games when their opponents (Bengals and Colts) didn't bother to play at full strength, and then got to meet them both again to convince everybody those games were legitimate?  

I am not placing any bets this weekend, but as time goes on Roger Goodell and Vince McMahon begin to have more similarities than differences when it comes to managing their entertainment empires of big bodied people.

Have a good time watch Big-Time Football this weekend.