2 straight weeks in the NFL, 2 tragic deaths with serious collateral damage. Kansas City Chiefs' Jevon Belcher killed his girlfriend last weekend before taking his own life and orphaning his baby daughter. This weekend, Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Brown, a practice squad linebacker was killed in a car crash. The driver was Josh Brent, who ended up in jail for intoxication manslaughter. But the NFL kept playing like nothing ever happened. Games were not even postponed for an hour, let alone canceled for the weekend. Football is big business and every game is like an event of epic proportion. Aside from the national TV impact of these games, there are many other problems with postponing any single game. There are a lot of people who travel long distances for watching these games. The travel impact for regular season baseball and basketball should be so trivial compared to football, though I would guess baseball travelers out-number the basketball travelers. Fantasy football is a huge part of football's popularity whether or not the NFL wants to accept it and missing a game this time of the year will screw up a whole lot of fantasy playoff races too. Of course, the fantasizers have to handle it like the player was injured or the team was on a bye and I think it's manageable.
The biggest problem NFL has when it comes to postponing these games is that, at this point of the season, the schedule has absolutely no slack. The bye weeks are over and it's wall to wall games until the hype week leading into the Super Bowl. I suggest they give up the hype week and introduce an extra bye week between week 17 and the playoffs. That way, NFL can postpone some games to "week 18" if need be and the Super Bowl will still be on the same weekend and the season doesn't have to stretch further out. The hype week is overdone anyways. The Super Bowl guests can afford to have one less playboy party during that week. NFL needs that extra week in-season. I believe they should have rescheduled both the games affected by deaths the last 2 weekends. It's just basic decency to do so. Especially last week when Belcher killed himself in the parking lot of the stadium in Kansas City. I was surprised the NFL didn't postpone that game to Monday night. That would have at least been minimally symbolic and NFL didn't even extend that courtesy. In the NBA, they could play games on back to back nights and in MLB, they could even play 2 on the same day. And there are empty days during their long seasons to squeeze games when necessary. NFL season is just 17 weeks and is a brutally physical game. It's impossible to play more than once a week and there are no slack weeks in the schedule. Time to introduce that slack at the end of the season.
As for the on-field action, the Cowboys won the game against the Bengals on a last second field goal on this emotional day and I could only imagine the pressure the kicker was in as he lined up for that kick under those strange circumstances.The Cowboys continue to be one of those enigmatic teams and they win when they should lose and vice versa. The New York Giants, the other enigmatic team from the same division crushed the New Orleans Saints and pretty much confirmed that Drew Brees won't be in the playoffs this season. RG III has a knee problem which threatens his status for the next game. Not a great news for yours truly who was counting on him for the fantasy playoff run. The Redskins definitely need him to continue the magical run as well in the nation's capital, where he is being rightfully accused of single handedly reviving football. The other rookie who is making magic in Indy won again. It's going to be an interesting rookie of the year contest between Andrew Luck and RG III. The MVP contest is also going to be tight the way Adrian Peterson has been performing lately. He is an amazing specimen. He is going to give Peyton Manning a serious run for his money. Coincidentally, both are eligible for the comeback player of the year too since they are both back from serious injuries. After 14 weeks, I would split the vote between those 2. I pick Peterson for the MVP and Manning for the comeback player, though the final vote, I suspect, will go the other way.
The biggest problem NFL has when it comes to postponing these games is that, at this point of the season, the schedule has absolutely no slack. The bye weeks are over and it's wall to wall games until the hype week leading into the Super Bowl. I suggest they give up the hype week and introduce an extra bye week between week 17 and the playoffs. That way, NFL can postpone some games to "week 18" if need be and the Super Bowl will still be on the same weekend and the season doesn't have to stretch further out. The hype week is overdone anyways. The Super Bowl guests can afford to have one less playboy party during that week. NFL needs that extra week in-season. I believe they should have rescheduled both the games affected by deaths the last 2 weekends. It's just basic decency to do so. Especially last week when Belcher killed himself in the parking lot of the stadium in Kansas City. I was surprised the NFL didn't postpone that game to Monday night. That would have at least been minimally symbolic and NFL didn't even extend that courtesy. In the NBA, they could play games on back to back nights and in MLB, they could even play 2 on the same day. And there are empty days during their long seasons to squeeze games when necessary. NFL season is just 17 weeks and is a brutally physical game. It's impossible to play more than once a week and there are no slack weeks in the schedule. Time to introduce that slack at the end of the season.
As for the on-field action, the Cowboys won the game against the Bengals on a last second field goal on this emotional day and I could only imagine the pressure the kicker was in as he lined up for that kick under those strange circumstances.The Cowboys continue to be one of those enigmatic teams and they win when they should lose and vice versa. The New York Giants, the other enigmatic team from the same division crushed the New Orleans Saints and pretty much confirmed that Drew Brees won't be in the playoffs this season. RG III has a knee problem which threatens his status for the next game. Not a great news for yours truly who was counting on him for the fantasy playoff run. The Redskins definitely need him to continue the magical run as well in the nation's capital, where he is being rightfully accused of single handedly reviving football. The other rookie who is making magic in Indy won again. It's going to be an interesting rookie of the year contest between Andrew Luck and RG III. The MVP contest is also going to be tight the way Adrian Peterson has been performing lately. He is an amazing specimen. He is going to give Peyton Manning a serious run for his money. Coincidentally, both are eligible for the comeback player of the year too since they are both back from serious injuries. After 14 weeks, I would split the vote between those 2. I pick Peterson for the MVP and Manning for the comeback player, though the final vote, I suspect, will go the other way.
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