The “Ryan Lochte Circumstance” …

I am certain that you have heard sufficiently about the “Ryan Lochte Circumstance”. So have I. However, last week, there were a few folks out there who were trying to make this case:

Ryan Lochte was being treated with kid gloves by the press because he is a white male and the evidence for that was the huge brouhaha that came up when Gabby Douglass did not put her hand over her heart during the national anthem.

I do not read the minds of columnists and commentators; nor do I read the minds of the folks trying to make this argument. However, it does seem to me that Lochte’s coverage was anything but “kind and gentle”. If this is the best argument one can find to illustrate “white male privilege”, I suggest it might be put on the back burner because it does not make the case well at all. For the record, where I stand on this matter is simple:

I do not recall ever being taught that it was a “crime against humanity” to hear the national anthem without having my hand on my heart. I was taught that one stood straight, took off your hat and put your eyes on the flag. What Gabby Douglass did was perfectly acceptable to me.

By contrast, Ryan Lochte is the leader in the clubhouse for the Asshat of the Year – – 2016.

If you would like to read just one more takedown of Ryan Lochte before he and his behavior sink into the muck and mire of sports history, let me suggest this column from Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post.

Jerry Jones is a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the class that will be inducted in August 2017. I think this is a bit strange and perhaps more than a bit premature. I acknowledge that Jones is one of the owners who has successfully marketed his team and the league to the benefit of all of the owners and to the benefit of the NFL “brand”. He is a master of promotion and positivity; those traits have helped to make the NFL the entertainment juggernaut that it is. He recognized early on that pro football is entertainment and that the best way to “grow the business” was to continue to entertain the fans.

I recognize that those are powerful credentials and I recognize that Jones will have plenty of support from the folks who do the voting because the majority of them are people who cover the NFL and teams in the NFL. Jerry Jones is probably the most “open” and “available” owner in the league; when someone covering any aspect of the NFL that might involve the Cowboys even tangentially needs to get a comment from an owner, Jerry Jones is willing to provide it. However, this is the part of the “Jerry Jones résumé that gives me pause:

In addition to owning the Cowboys, Jerry Jones serves directly as the GM for the team. That is part of his “NFL career”; and in that part, he has been “less than fully satisfactory”.

I need not go into the record for the Cowboys once “The Triplets” – Aikman, Smith and Irvin – went their separate ways. As a GM, Jerry Jones would have been fired multiple times if he worked for any owner other than Jerry Jones.

I do not vote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and I never will. If I were in that position this year, however, this nomination would give me pause…

Last week, I wrote about the importance of the backup QB in the NFL. There is an implicit problem in having good backup QBs for all 32 teams; that would mean there would have to be 64 “good QBs” out there. The fact is; there are not. The Niners demonstrated that fact late last week when they signed Christian Ponder to a 1-year deal after third string QB, Thad Lewis required season-ending surgery. The Niners’ current backup is Colin Kaepernick who is still rehabbing from shoulder surgery and who has been plagued with “shoulder woes” during training camp. Christian Ponder is the Niners’ safety net.

Ponder last appeared in an NFL game in October 2014; there is a reason for that. Ponder has started 36 games in a 4-year NFL career. The team record in those 36 games is 14-21-1. Using the ESPN QBR (Quarterback Rating system) which has a range of 0 – 100 as a measure, Ponder’s best season was 51.63 – ever so slightly above average. In those 36 starts, according to Pro Football Reference, he engineered exactly 3 game-winning drives.

What I find interesting about this signing is that the Niners now have a depth chart that reads:

Blaine Gabbert – #10 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft
Colin Kaepernick – #36 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft
Christian Ponder – #12 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft.

The Niners would seem to own the 2011 NFL Draft …

The Miami Dolphins will play their home games this year in Hard Rock Stadium. No, they have not moved to a new venue; this is another name for the stadium that was originally known as Joe Robbie Stadium back when Joe Robbie owned the team back in the Iron Age. Hard Rock Café is a rock music themed restaurant chain and they are the latest in a long list of business entities to put their name on this stadium. Off the top of my head, this place has been called:

Pro Player Stadium
Land Shark Stadium
Sun Life Stadium

I am sure I missed one or two others along the way. Good luck to Hard Rock in maintaining enough interest in this naming venture to have it last for a while. Meanwhile, if the Dolphins fortunes take a turn for the worse, be sure to look for someone to say they are between a Hard Rock and a hard place. BaDaBing! BaDaBoom!!!

Finally, a comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times on the “Ryan Lochte Circumstance”:

“Ryan Lochte spokesman for Burger King?

“Hey, don’t laugh. They’d probably sell a lot of Whoppers.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………