Copious 9/11 References Render Football Virtually Unwatchable

Sunday of Week 1. A time when American football fans are used to being asked the question “how ’bout them Cowboys?” but this year those who tuned in were treated to a heavy dose of “how ’bout them multiple, open-ended military occupations?”

For the first time since the multi-hour pregame show at Super Bowl XXXVI (which I am convinced continues on in some particularly grim circle of hell), the 9/11 references were so prevalent and indeed so heavy-handed that they rendered professional football virtually unwatchable.

While the games in New York and Washington might have been forgiven for cashing in a bit during halftime shows, the effort which announcers put in to bringing up 9/11 at any opportunity and during any game was simply overwhelming. Every play was spun as allegory for America’s post-9/11 reaction.

The Lions fumble the ball and recover their own fumble? Just like America recovered after the tragedy lo’ those many years ago. Player’s wife just gave birth to a child? That’s sad because all those people who were killed on 9/11, some of them had kids too you know.

The announcers during the Buccaneers-Lions game even took a break for a self-congratulatory moment, declaring that football had been instrumental in the “healing process” for America after 9/11.

17 thoughts on “Copious 9/11 References Render Football Virtually Unwatchable”

  1. I couldn't stand the ESPN telecast of the Mets-Cubs game any longer, either. Turned the TV off & listened to the radio broadcast of the game.

    1. You mean the radio announcers were any better? Surprising, if so. Not being able to get the radio version, I just muted the TV. Unfortunately the game went 11 innings, allowing the drones to spout even more drivel than scheduled. At least some good came of it — the Mets lost.

      For me the nadir was the Cowboys-Jets game, where the Cowboys coaches were wearing those NYPD & FDNY caps.

      I suspect those tuning in to tomorrow night's New England-Miami game will be bombarded with more of the same. Recall 10 years ago, when the sports pundits claimed it was such wonderful karma that the team called the "Patriots" came back from the brink of elimination to win the Super Bowl.

      1. And that was in the era when Bill Belichek was secretly bugging the opposing team's locker room…I guess irony isn't dead…

    2. Yeah, baseball was just as insufferable as football. The FoxSportsAZ telecast of the Diamondbacks-Padres game at Chase Field was further blighted by the presence of that senile war criminal John McInsane. FoxSportsAZ added injury to insult by giving the demented old murderer nearly ten minutes of mic and camera time. For once I'm glad my D'Backs LOST a game. Serves them (and any other team) right!

      1. Wonder if the Padres were wearing their hideous camouflage uniforms. That would have made it a "2-fer" in the blight department. I now despise the Padres almost as much as the Yankees.

        Back in June Bush ruined the opening game of the College World Series by his presence, tossing the ceremonial first pitch. ESPN then made matters worse by having him in the booth the entire 2nd inning. Once again, "mute" button to the rescue.

        Fortunately the politicians & neocons stayed the hell away from last month's Little League World Series. Given how often the announcers mentioned how the umpires, scorekeepers, ushers & all others connected with the event were volunteers, in retrospect I'm a bit amazed they never added ". . . just like our wonderful soldiers fighting for our freedom," or some such tripe. Thank goodness for small favors.

  2. Commercials rendered American football unwatchable years ago anyway but yea, all the goose stepping seig heiling nationalistic stuff made it even worse than usual. Good day to not watch tv.

  3. Why watch football at all? It's a gladiator game for the modern masses, designed to distract, "entertain" and absorb your time, thoughts and money.

    Frankly, I hate football and never watch it. This should have never been made into a national sport, but should have stayed in high school as a athletic activity for kids.

    Adults playing football is just plain stupid. The players are idolized as "stars", but show no particular talent other then running back and forth and throwing a ball. They're grossly overpaid and with all the grandstanding they do, along with the coaches, agents, reporters and betting involved, this "game" is quite obviously nothing more then a gigantic fraud perpetrated upon the American people (and all the other fools in the world that watch this stupidity).

    It's not "entertainment" for intelligent people, but mind-fluff for fools and gullible morons who are easily bamboozled into believing that what they're "team" does is "important". Meanwhile the rest of the world goes to hell while prime time television devotes virtually billions of dollars towards piping this mind-fluff into the homes of American morons.

    And everybody wonders why our country is in the shitter.

    Why not just return to gladiator games instead? It's the same damned thing.

    1. Try the rugby world cup instead. The time zones make it a bit duff but at least the commentators just talk rugby BS instead ' of "hah, the winning coach is even wetter than bin laden after having a gatorade bucket dumped on him" BS

  4. I love watching a good football game as much as the next guy, but I carefully avoided watching it yesterday. I agree that it has replaced gladiator games, much as food stamps have replaced the bread provided to the masses in the declining Roman Empire.

    As far as gratuitous 9/11 references go, I'm afraid we are going to be suffering through them all week long. They're an easy distraction.

  5. Part I: The marriage of NFL football with the armed forces is not all about glory. It's about secrets, lies and death, too. The NFL has turned Pat Tillman into an lifeless icon, instead of celebrating his iconoclastic nature (e.g. the man who told a fellow Ranger in Iraq that “This war is so —-ing illegal!).
    Tillman was enshrined as an icon while the man fell by the wayside, his parents used as props at his funeral. “The truth may be painful, but it’s the truth,” his mother said in 2005. “If you feel you’re being lied to, you can never put it to rest.”

    We should honor Pat Tillman’s memory by honoring the man, not the myth. The iconoclast, not the icon. As his mother said, “Pat would have wanted to be remembered as an individual, not as a stock figure or political prop. Pat was a real hero, not what they used him as.”

  6. Part II: Here's an excerpts from Mick Brown's piece "The Betrayal of Pat Tillman" at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8046658/Betray

    "For Amir Bar-Lev, the director of ”The Tillman Story”, one of the great tragedies of the saga is how the myth came to obscure the man. Tillman” … "For Mary Tillman, what the army did to her son made a mockery of everything he went to war for – honesty, integrity, the defence of the truth. 'If you ask me if I trust our system now, the answer is I’m pretty disgusted by it. Unfortunately in our culture people survive more effectively through lies and deception and dishonourable behaviour than they do the reverse. And that’s very sad.’

  7. Part III: Another excerpt from Mick Brown's piece "The Betrayal of Pat Tillman";

    The Tillman family, [Mary Tillman] she says, have 'moved on’. 'We can find joy in our lives again, but still not lose sight of the importance of getting at the truth, for Pat’s legacy, and for all the other soldiers and their families. A lot of people don’t really understand the depth of what happened to Pat – “Oh, he’s not the only one to die of friendly fire.” But it has absolutely nothing to do with the friendly fire; it’s all the deceptions around it. ‘

    If you want to learn about the real Pat Tillman, see the documentary “The Tillman Story” or read Mary Tillman’s book “Boots on the Ground by Dusk” (at blurb.com with preview), Jon Krakauer’s book “Where Men Win Glory,” or “Barely a Footnote” — Superbowl XLIII and the NFL’s Betrayal of Pat Tillman” posted at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com (see June 2010 Posts).

  8. I used to love sports mostly because of Sandy Koufax, Jim Brown, and Bill Russell. Now, even NCAA sports are unwatchable because of the incessant appearance of corporate logos, not just on the uniforms, but EVERYWHERE! I refuse to call Candlestick Park by it's new name, and refer to the new Giants stadium as The Phone Booth. What sports needs now more than ever are heroes like Mohammed Ali and Jim Brown, who stood up for civil rights and against immoral wars, instead of refusing to miss out on that Sinful Commercial Endorsement.

    1. Unfortunately those corporate sponsorships are necessary to help pay for those new stadiums, along with hyper-inflated player salaries. When the trend started it seemed like most of those sponsorships were by doomed companies. For example, one of the very first "company stadiums" was Enron Field in Houston, named shortly before the company imploded. Others soon followed, proving conclusively that God has a sense of humor. The running joke for awhile was that if a company's name was put on a new stadium, you should short its stock. Nowadays it's hard to keep up with stadium names because of all the mergers & takeovers — witness Qwest Field in Seattle becoming CenturyLink Field.

  9. Just as nauseating were the flyovers by arrested adolescent pilots playing war. Several games had them – at half a million dollars per flyover.

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