Above is a press conference by Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s in the wake of the team’s last-second loss to the Houston Texans last Sunday.
I wanted to watch that game, as Burrows is one of the better QBs in the league and Texan Quarterback C.J. Stroud is coming off an amazing 500-yard five-touchdown game the prior week. I have NFL Sunday Ticket, so that any time there is an out-of-market game I want to see, it is a sure thing that NFLST will black it out. They did. Of course they did.
Oh, also, living in the foothills above Denver, we do not have access to cable TV, so I thought it would be neat to be able to watch the Broncos every week. I mean, blackouts are used to force fans to attend games rather than watch them on TV, right?
Wrong. The Broncos are sold out in eternity, season tickets left in Last Wills, so that they are perpetually sold out. And, NFL Sunday Ticket blacks them out every Sunday, seventeen times a year. Probably they do so in playoff games too, but with the Broncos, we do not have a chance to test that theory.
Why the blackout? Our son, an astute businessman and observer, says that it is not the team that does the blackout, but rather the television affiliate that carries the broadcast. It has something to do with clinging on to advertising revenue. I don’t get it. Maybe an astute reader can ‘splain for me.
That’s not why I put up the video above and urged you not to watch it. Brian Regan, comedian, offers a lot of insight into sports, and one time (I could not find the clip) he suggested something to NFL teams: Invest in microphones. He then imitates a sports interview as above with Burrows:
Reporter: “mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm.”
Quarterback, coach, whoever: “Yes, that’s a good question. The reason we called that play … blah blah blah.”
Reporter: “mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm.”
And on it goes, in this case almost ten minutes, we the viewers never having a clue what the question was.
We live in high-tech times. NFL teams, please – buy a F******* microphone, even just one, to pass around during these tedious post-game interviews. They even make them without cords attached.
Piece of Mindful 
They are testing your ability to figure out the questions, Carnac style.
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Sounds like Straight needs to return to remind you the League is rigged? I mean so who cares what anyone in an organization has to say about anything.
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You’ve been around for a while. Yes, Straight needs to return. Not gonna happen. The league is rigged, but random chance is a factor in such a chaotic sport. The Broncos won a game due to 12 men at the end of the Monday Night contest. Was that an … accident? Slipping that 12th guy out there and then the refs counting and calling the foul … could have been overlooked and no one would have noticed.
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Yes the random play is one of the weirdest parts of all of it. I assume the Leagues just accept this necessary evil if the refs aren’t able to make a correction to steer things in the preferred direction.
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Big business hates random chance almost as much as it does competition. NO particular fix is perfect, however, we can all agree on general, systematic intent, no?
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I’m sorry but what do you mean by general systemic intent. Can you provide example. Thank you.
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Control the outcome enhances the bottom line. Who regulates, how effective are regulatory measures, when all the cast of characters are on the payroll?
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So it sounds like you also believe the NFL to be rigged. If so can I ask what led you to this conclusion. For me it was the book The Fix Is In by Brian Tuohy.
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I suppose I am just skeptical of ‘the spectacle,’ top to bottom. Just more distraction in a global game of social control via engineering/conditioning, IMO. Here’s a no-brainer example of the mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrGoy4CC5Q
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Ya no better way to reignite LA Ram fan base than to help ensure they’re in a Super Bowl so soon after moving back to L.A. into new stadium. Gotta move those season tickets somehow!!
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Since this is the sports thread.. here’s Richard Nixon bowling
Per Wikipedia, at various times some subbasement room in the white house has been a bowling alley. One of them became the situation room later.
The pic looks odd to me, but, well, why wouldn’t you have a picture of Nixon bowling? The only thing I can really spot as fake is that ball return machine or whatever at right.. the chrome tubing has an outline on top that would suggests it’s a paste and/or drawn in.
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And also that loud pattern.. looks a little jokey, and was maybe used to cover some other background.
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The pattern is laced doily, a little garish, but from a different time. Note that his toe is over the line, meaning he scratched.
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His toe was always over the line. Tricky dick was always covering up something, including “the clock” in the upper left corner… A strange spot to be hanging over the middle of a bowling alley, then again, he was always in the middle of something. The ball never even touched the floor. he torpedoed the pins, reaching out with his usual handshake with the devil.
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Do you actually believe all that nonsense he went through. I just chalk it up to nothing but manufactured crap.
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