The NFL Referee Lockout

So, it's the first Sunday of the 2012 NFL season and, not one week after Labor Day (the day we're supposed to celebrate workers in this country, even if anti-capitalists like Eric Cantor can't quite grok that fact), the league will have Scab Referees calling the games today. The NFL owners have locked out the regular, unionized referees in order to obtain some leverage in new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations. Notably, the owners want the refs to accept a gradual move away from pensions and a slower rate of increases in pay.

One thing to keep in mind here: this is a lockout, not a strike. A lot of fans conflate the two, and that's wrong. A lockout is an aggressive move by the owners to keep the workers from, well, working, even though they're willing to do so. A strike is when the workers affirmatively decide to stop working in order to force the owners' hands. The moves are roughly mirror images of each other, but the agressor party is different; in this case, it's the owners escalating the conflict.

Anyway, the replacement refs. They've been getting some withering criticism. They're mocked for having little experience- one was drummed out of the lingerie league, one admitted he's better at calling six man football (and how often does THAT skill really get used?), one is a labor lawyer by day (!!!). Their on-the-field performance has been roughly what you'd expect from such inauspicious backgrounds. They show little grasp of the rules, a poor sense for how the game develops, and trouble in front of crowds and cameras.

Of course, to be fair to them, calling a football game is really hard; the rules are numerous and complicated, the action is fast, the offending actions are small and subtle. There's intense pressure from crowds of angry fans, to say nothing of 300 pound linesmen who'd been told all week to "GET MEAN!" for this game.

All of which kinda points out why it's important to have referees- and any worker, really- with some kind of demonstrated ability to handle the job- in other words, the regular, unionized refs.

That's not to say that the regular, unionized refs are infallible, or that even the worst regular ref would be better than the best scab ref. It's just to say that if you're looking for someone who can handle a difficult job, the person who currently holds that job is probably a good place to start your search. With the unionized refs, you can expect a certain skill level; most of them have been here before, often for a very long time, they've built up relationships with other refs, the league, and other football institutions, and have access to resources necessary to improve their skills. This doesn't mean they're all good; but it means we can hold them more accountable if they're not. They've kind of got no excuse. On the other hand, when you've got a guy who couldn't even keep a job in the lingerie league, his fuck ups come with a "Well, What Did You Expect?" issue.

That being said, I understand why the unionized refs are having trouble marshaling public opinion to their side here. For all the fan's bitching about the scab refs, it's not like they think much better of unionized refs. In every sport, we only notice the refs when they fuck up- and thanks to football's voluminous, complicated rules, there's plenty of opportunities for that, even with the best of refs. Moreover, the refs are fighting for pensions, and if you're in the private sector, like me, that kinda comes off like fighting for a right to sex with supermodels. I'll probably never have a pension myself, so why should I be upset that anyone else doesn't get one?

I get that, but there's a simple answer- pensions make the world a better place. The more people who have a stable, sustainable retirement, the more stable and just this country's going to be. The less people who have to suffer in their twilight years, the less strain that's going to be put on our public institutions. Thus, even if I'm not going to have a great retirement (And if you're really concerned, I'll tell you where to mail the checks), I'm still going to benefit from the better world that will result from somone getting a good retirement. I understand that they get a benefit that I don't, and that that's not fair; the thing is, I don't see why the logical conclusion is that I should be agitating for that benefit to be taken away from them; I should be agitating to get that benefit for myself, too.

(And if you're noticing that this same argument can be applied to, well, most union disputes right now, such as Illinois' argument over public worker pensions, give yourself a Gold Star for the day. Or a Red Star, if you listen to Paul Ryan.)

Of course, not every employer can afford to give its employees are useful pension. I get that, there are economic realities here. But this is the NFL we're talking about, an $XXX billion dollar industry. It can afford a little long-term planning for its employees. And I'm not in the mood to stand against the referees for having the courage to demand such a thing when bargaining for their services, even if I don't.

The NFL and Evolving Morality

I'm a little late to this one, but I still find it fascinating: Will Leitch, one of my favorite sports writers, has a pretty provocative piece in New York Magazine this week. The title alone ought to tell you what's up: "Is Football Wrong?"

There's certainly going to be a lot of people who immediately dismiss such questions. (Kissing Suzy Kolber kinda does, but that might just be the site's instinctive propensity for dick jokes). But- and this will surprise no one, as I have, at length, discussed my problems with the NFL- it's something worth discussing. The long term injuries in the NFL seem to be piling up, and I think it's okay to question if you want to keep watching that. And Leitch doesn't even get into Roger Goodell's dictatorial control over the league and the players, the league's woeful labor practices, and the way dreams of NFL glory are mutating college and high school football programs. There's good reasons to change the channel.

But still, I hesitate to call the entire game immoral, or even amoral. From a tactical standpoint, I think such terms necessarily imply a judgment call that puts fans of the sport on the defensive, less willing to consider any change, any improvement to the sport. From an equity standpoint, I don't think it's fair; all sports have their shitty, exploitative elements, who the fuck are we to declare what's better? Everyone should be allowed to like the sport they like without judgement, unless it's clearly, inextricably harmful.

Which brings me to my most important point: I don't think there's anything fundamentally immoral or amoral about professional football. I think the NFL pursues some immoral and amoral policies, and I think the NFL allows immoral and amoral things to occur. But I think those are policy failures with clear (if not simple) solutions. Player injuries can be addressed with better training, tweaked rules, better equipment, and better medical staff. Goodell's powers could be curbed by the other owners. Labor practices could change if the union and the fans stood united. I'm not saying these things will happen; I'm actually pessimistic about curbing Goodell's power or fixing labor problems. But I'm saying they could happen without fundamentally altering the sport. And that, I think, means that the amoral and immoral aspects of football can be separated from the game itself.

It's possible that I'm wrong. But I'd like to try it my way before I give up on football.

And if I'm right, then I think it's more important for the football fans with a social conscious to stay engaged with the sport. We need someone watching the sport to say this shit ain't right, and we want the Commissioner and the owners and the coaches to do something about it. I don't think it will be nearly as effective if those voices come from outside the football community; we've seen time and again that the major sports leagues are more responsive to their existing fan bases than to potential fans or lapsed fans (there's a lot of argument that hockey would be more popular without the fighting, but old time hockey fans still think it's essential, so the NHL keeps hockey; baseball refuses to adopt instant replay because it'll give George Will a sad; hell, even the NFL slow-walking new concussion policies is part of this). Plus, if you like football, you shouldn't have to do without just because Art Modell and Jim Irsay are turds. That puts the onus on the fans, and that's bullshit; we're not the ones fucking up the game here.

Of course, if you can't stand the carnage anymore, than you can't stand the carnage anymore. You don't have to watch, either. I think that's what KSK is kind of missing here; even if we can make a plausible case that the players have given well-informed consent to the risks, that doesn't necessarily make it fun to watch men doing long-term damage to themselves. But you can both like football and be struck by the consequences of the game as it's currently played. And if you are, I think you need to stay engaged.

Book Review: After Friday Night Lights

Over my recent vacation, I had the chance to read "After Friday Night Lights", the new ebook from Buzz Bissinger. Bissinger's original "Friday Night Lights" is firmly in the cannon of books for People Who Give a Shit About Sports (if not for People, full stop), so a follow up to it is right in this blog's wheelhouse.

The follow up focuses squarely on Bissinger's relationship with Boobie Miles, the highly touted tailback from the original FNL who is injured in a pre-season game- and promptly discarded by the football team, the school, and the entire community. Bissinger relates what Boobie's life has become after football; a string of meaningless jobs, a nomadic existence, a few brushes with the law. Bissinger also reflects on his continuing relationship with Boobie, which has included bailing him out on more than a few occassions.

Bissinger has become more radicalized since he wrote FNL. That's understandable, I guess; he famously had some dustups with the coaches and schools he covered in FNL after the book came out, and as the new book demonstrates, he's had to watch Boobie's life curdle from a very close spot. Bissinger acutely understands the plight of someone who's been used up and spit out by the Football Industrial Complex, and wants you to do the same.

Which is, of course, a laudable goal, but the fact is, Bissinger pulled that off- quite deftly- in the original FNL. Indeed, he already told us the story of Boobie Miles in that book, and while the specifics of Boobie's life after football obviously weren't there, the general arc was clear. To add on to it is just gilding the lilly.

Moreover, the book is told in the context of Bissinger's relationship with Boobie, which just feels self-indulgent. At it's worst, it feels like Bissinger is just bragging about how much of a Friend To The Downtrodden he is, with a few caveats about how maybe it isn't wise for him to continue this relationship (which kinda feel just as yucky as Bissinger's paternalism). At it's best, it's still a Who Cares? situation.

What's unique about this book is that it's short (Just 42 pages on my iPad) and cheap ($2.99). In other words, it wouldn't have been feasible to publish this book even five years ago; this could only work now, with ereaders and digital books storming the marketplace. Does the low investment of time and money mitigate the problems with the book? Not completely, but at least I don't feel ripped off. And if this is a harbinger of things to come- if the rise of ebooks means we can get some more medium-scale sportswriting, longer than an article but shorter than a novel- well, that's alright. The more formats the better, I should think.

And of course, anything that gets people rereading (or hell, reading for the first time) the original Friday Night Lights- or checking out the decent movie and the incredible TV show- is okay with me. I just wonder if some kind of anniversary edition and book tour wouldn't have served the same purpose, without adding so much detritus to the story.

Please Stop Telling David Haugh How to Raise His Kids

Last week, David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune continued the debate over injuries in football in the wake of Junior Seau's death. You can read Haugh's column here. It's mostly just an ode to all of the good football does for kids, borne out of Haugh's own experience playing the game in school. And that's fine; we here at The Left Field Line unequivocally believe that Sports Are Good (or at least can be). I'm suspicious that football provides Haugh's stated benefits in a way that other team sports (or hell, other group activities) do not, and Haugh is WAY too blase about balancing those benefits against the risks, but still: football does some good things. So stated, so resolved.

Here's the problem: "I won't tell you how to raise your kid if you won't tell me how to raise mine." We've touched on this before, but that's a rhetorical dodge so big and obvious that anytime you see someone use it, you should immediately question everything else they've said on the subject.

Kurt Warner, Troy Aikman, Bart Scott, Drew Brees- they were all only talking about how they were going to raise their kids. None of them said that anyone else was wrong for coming to a different conclusion. None of them said kids shouldn't be allowed to play football, or that parents should be condemned for letting them do so. They were speaking only of choices they would make in their own life, for their own family. David Haugh's parental authority is perfectly intact.

In a previous post, I explained why guys like Haugh are feeling nonetheless threatened. But that doesn't make Haugh's argument any stronger. The issue here is: what should we do about injuries in football? And Haugh's just plain not addressing that. That's becoming a pattern in this debate; there's a sizeable group of people who don't really want to talk about injuries or figure out anyway of handling the injuries, they just want to shout, "Stop telling me what to do!"

(Haugh, at least, also spends some time talking about the benefits of football, but that's not any more on point. We all agree that football has its rewards, we're just trying to figure out the risks.)

That's a problem, because this is an important issue. The way that the football community addresses it is going to decide the future of the sport. The last thing we need is the distraction of hollow, quasi-libertarian catcalls.

The Junior Seau Fallout

I haven't had much to say about Junior Seau, yet. When it happened, my first reaction was that we didn't know anything, so I shouldn't say anything- and it'd be really weird to put together a blog post saying that I shouldn't say anything.

And frankly, we're about two weeks later, and we don't really know that much more. But, the rest of the NFL community is reacting. And I have the funny feeling that this is going to be a long, continuing debate as we discover what, if anything, actually happened here, and start to come to terms with it. This is an important debate. So it sucks that it's already playing out on some pretty fucked up terms.

Specifically, I'm thinking of Kurt Warner. As you probably heard, Warner had this to say in response to Seau's death:

"And when you hear things like the bounties, when you know certain things having played the game, and then obviously when you understand the size, the speed, the violence of the game, and then you couple that with situations like Junior Seau — was that a ramification of all the years playing? And things that go with that. It scares me as a dad. I just wonder — I wonder what the league's going to be like. I love that the commissioner is doing a lot of things to try to clean up the game from that standpoint and improve player safety, which helps, in my mind, a lot. But it's a scary thing for me."

Note carefully that Warner wasn't even committed to keeping his sons out of football, let alone saying what anyone else should do. He just voiced some honest concerns about the game.

ESPN commentator and former player Merrill Hoge had this to say in response:

"I think it's irresponsible and unacceptable. He has thrown the game that has been so good to him under the bus. He sounds extremely uneducated ... Head trauma is not the issue here — it's how head trauma is treated. The game is safer than it has ever been because we're being proactive with head trauma. That is the biggest issue."

There's a lot of dumb packed in there. I see no way that voicing concern about the safety of football is "irresponsible"- quite the opposite, in fact. Nor do I see the need for the completely overused "under the bus" metaphor- c'mon, it's not like the NFL was a charity keeping Warner afloat. He earned his spot on NFL rosters, and made a lot of money for the NFL while doing it. He doesn't owe it anything, let alone his silence. And of course, Hoge is the one who comes off as "uneducated"- head trauma is most certainly one of the issues, otherwise the NFL wouldn't be trying to get it out of the game. And anyway, I don't see where Warner was talking about head trauma as the exclusive issue here, so Hoge is missing the point a little.


But, disagree though I do with Hoge, I'm glad he spoke up. This is, as I said, an important debate, and we need to get as many views as possible. I'm fine with Hoge disagreeing with me- though I'll admit, it helps that his points are so easy to pick apart- I just want to make sure all the views are represented.


Which brings us to Amani Toomer, who said: 

"I'd definitely have my son to play football. That's what the Toomer family does. We all play football. But what this reminds me of is the guy at the basketball court, who once he gets done playing takes the ball and ruins the game for everybody else. I think Kurt Warner needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to this. Everything that he's gotten in his life has come from playing football. He works at the NFL Network right now. For him to try and trash the game, it seems to me that it's just a little disingenuous to me."

And that's just not helping anyone. Toomer is taking it a step beyond disagreeing with Warner and flat out saying that Warner's opinion should not have been voiced.  Maybe Warner's right, maybe he's wrong, but we'll never find out if Toomer had his way. And I think figuring out who's right and wrong- and who's opinion doesn't even fall into the categories of "right" and "wrong"- is the only way football's going to move forward. But we can't do that when one "side" in this debate is saying that another "side" shouldn't even speak up.


But then, Toomer actually reveals why his reaction- and Hoge's, and a lot of other people's- is so over-the-top. "That's what the Toomer family does," he said. And that's the key here. For Toomer and the people like him, football isn't just a game. It isn't just business or an industry or even a lifestyle- it's part of their heritage. It's something that was passed down to them, that they want to pass down to their children.


This isn't that strange. We've all got stories of our dad taking us to our first baseball game, or of teaching our kids to shoot hoops. Sports are part of our heritage, for all of us (or at least, everyone reading this blog). Hell, that's why this blog takes sports so seriously (when you get passed the made-up curse words and dick jokes) When you get that, you can see why some people take attacks on sports very personally.


What is strange is that Warner wasn't telling anyone it shouldn't be part of their heritage. He wasn't even certain that he won't pass it down to his own children (Troy Aikman seemed a lot more resolute, in fact). Warner wasn't calling Toomer or Hoge or anyone else bad parents; he was just trying to explain his thought process on a very difficult decision.


I'm sure I can't read minds (believe me, I've done the necessary testing), but I think Hoge and Toomer's overly-defensive response reveals quite a bit about the strength of their arguments- and their own doubts about football.

Women Scouts in the NFL

Over at ESPN, Jeff Davis makes the case for more women in the NFL scouting corps. Hard to argue with him. As I've said before, every institution benefits from diversity. More points of view are better for everyone, and while different genders don't guarantee meaningfully different points of view, it's a decent proxy. So, at the very least, any kind of formal or informal bar on women in any role in the NFL (outside of maybe playing, given the physical demands of the game) is indefensible and, ultimately, counter-productive for the NFL.

In fact, I'd say that the scouting corps has a uniquely pressing need for diversity. Scouting corps are, by and large, the exact sort of conventional-wisdom-spouting old-boys-clubs that resist every kind of major change in the game, whether it be broad scale reform or just hiring an athlete from a slightly different background. All too often, scouts are former players (of dubious skill or prestige) or long-time hangers-on. Generally speaking, they're way too focused on their subjective assessments of a players' "mental make up" or their narrow definition of "proper form" to understand the things that actually lead to success.

After all, the current NFL scouting corps says ridiculous things like this:

"I just don't know if football is that important to him. He was raised by women, which bothers me. I mean, how tough can he be? It's not his fault, but it's still reality."

On the micro-level, I'm confident that any woman working as a scout would dispel that bullshit right away. More importantly, at the macro-level, if scouts come from different backgrounds, it's a lot less likely that they will, as a group, be as beholden to the same outdated thoughts and resistant to new ideas. Which is not to say that any random woman is naturally more progressively-minded than the current NFL scouts. Just that different kinds of people are far less likely to think similarly.

Of course, there are many fine, open-minded NFL scouts out there already. They're willing to re-examine their own assumptions, and know that the game is changing- as is our understanding of it. They're not all in the smoke-filled backroom. But the good ones need their numbers bolstered. Greater diversity, and specifically, more woman is no guarantee of doing that- but it's a good place to start.

Good News, Everyone: The NFL Wants to Help Fix Fan Interactions

Next season, a fan who gets kicked out of an NFL stadium will have to take a class on proper stadium behavior- and generally pass a test- before they're allowed back in. The class and test is going to include things like this:

"One true-or-false question: “Every fan has a right to like any team they wish. Using abusive language towards fans who support teams you don’t like will not be tolerated.”

When we're getting into things like that- vague language like "abusive language" and policing, in a very general way, the way fans interact with each, the inside of my skull starts to itch. Obviously, I have no problem with the NFL trying to rein in violent patrons. I think the league OWES that to us. But questions like that aren't just preventing violence, they're trying to define the "right way" to be a football fan. And that's not the league's place. The NFL should handle running the best games possible, and trust its fans to understand their role.

(And yes, this blog often talks about the proper role of the fan, but that's my point- I'm just a fan, too. We can police our own as far as etiquette. Just send someone with arrest powers for the violent stuff.)

My concerns may be much ado about nothing; it may be that only violent folks have to go to these things. But I'm still not satisfied. The security guards who are supposed to spot the offenders are going to have needles-in-haystacks problems out the wazoo- assuming the offenders even ever intended to see another game in the first place. So good luck enforcing this rule in any meaningful way.

More importantly, I doubt that the violence stems from fan ignorance. Even the violent ones, in the cold light of day- or, say, the harsh florescent light of a classroom- know not to pick a fight. But the stadium is a heightened emotional environment- thousands of fans, yelling and screaming, booze is flowing like water, etc. That has a tendency to make you lose perspective, and it's going to do that even if you've sat through a lecture and pop quiz.

Unless the NFL is willing to change that environment, little classes aren't going to have any appreciable effect. And the NFL has no interest in changing that environment, just as I have no interest in telling it to do so; the heightened emotions are why we go to the stadiums in the first place. If we wanted to be cold and rational about it, we'd just crunch the stats on Monday morning.

The NFL needs to focus more on security in the stands, on actually having people who can recognize bad situations early and stepping in before they turn outright ugly. And I'm sure toning down on the culture of violence around the game can only help, too. but it needs to get out of the business of lecturing fans on their behavior right away. Let the fans decide how to be fans.

Yes, the NFL Draft is Useless, But...

There's no way you haven't heard this: the NFL draft starts tonight, and will go on for three days of prime time coverage. The Indianapolis Colts pick first, and will take Andrew Luck. The Washington Redskins have the second pick, and will take Robert Griffin III. You know all this already. In fact, you probably know quite a bit more than this about the draft, and probably more than me.

Which just kinda illustrates why I won't be watching the draft- we already know most of what's going to happen, at least to the extent that we care. The top 10 or so are mapped out; the next 10-20 are sketchier, but we all have a fair idea of what our favorite teams are going to do thanks to blogs, local media, leaks, etc. If they surprise us, we can find that out via Twitter pretty quickly without having to sit through 31 other teams.

Plus, it's not really good television; it's old guys in suits calling out names, then young guys in suits putting on hats. Then the New Jersey delegation boos and we all have to wait 9 months to a year before we know if any of the players selected will have any impact at all.

So, I won't be tuning in- but I understand how it's become such an event. See, we, as sports fans, fucking love the NFL. We want to watch as much of it as we can, or at least more of it than the season and playoffs provide. We want to talk about it and think about it and analyze it some more. In short, we want more NFL content.

And as far as that goes, the draft is better than a lot of the alternatives. It's not as insipid and useless as the soon-to-be-cancelled Pro Bowl. It's not as dangerous and exploitative as an expanded season or playoffs structure. It's not as fluffy and baseless as ESPN chatter.

So, as a substitute for what we really like about the NFL- the athletics, the excitement, the strategy- it's a poor substitute. But as an excuse to talk football for a few days in April, the NFL draft will do just fine.