Former Bears linebacker Dick Butkus, arguably the most notorious animal in NFL history, once described his “goal” when he went out on the field:
“I’m not out to just hurt a man, I’m out to kill him.”
That was the 1960s, when football was fun to watch, as opposing players tried to kill each other.
Fast forward to today’s NFL, whose Prout’s Neck boss fines players for the slightest of infractions, lest they be seen as too rough.
Evidence all-star Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, who Mr. Prout’s Neck fined $46,371 in Week 2 of the season for head-butting a would-be tackler to try to gain extra yardage.
That’s all Barkley did – put his head down and smashed into the helmet of the defensive player to get in a few more yards.
Giants QB Jaxon Dart is also on Roger Goodell’s sh*t list for head-butting Eagles linebacker Jihaad Campbell in NY’s Week 6 win over the reigning Super Bowl champion division rival.
Then Goodell recently went after Lions defensive back Brian Branch’s wallet, fining him for “unsportsmanlike conduct” following a game against the Chiefs.
The hits just keep on coming, to coin a phrase.
But that’s the way football was always played and is supposed to be played – with a killer instinct, real, live “head-to-head” competition.
Yet nowadays the “girly man” (think SNL skit) in the NFL’s corner office is too sensitive to see a guy simply head butt another player – and merely just by running the ball, mind you, not picking an after-play fight.
It’s the influence of the genteel gentleman from Prout’s Neck, where non-contact badminton reigns supreme.
The NFL’s penalty-drunk boss levied 19 fines in Week 2 of the season, the majority of which were for “unnecessary roughness.”
In Week 4, meanwhile, Goodell fined Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean $11,593 for “unsportsmanlike conduct” after tackling and then stepping on Buccaneers running back Rachaad White.
Hold my beer.
Come on, Prout’s Neck boy, this is football, not water ballet.
When Chicago Bears 6’3”, 245-pound linebacker Dick Butkus was in uniform – from 1965 to 1973 – football was fun to watch.
“Dick was an animal, a maniac. A stone maniac,” Hall of Famer defensive end Deacon Jones once said. “He was a well-conditioned animal, and every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery, not the hospital.”
Butkus was named the most feared tackler of all time by the NFL Network in 2009.
Once during practice, he hit a metal football sled so hard that he crumpled it and left a piece of it dangling.
“Tackling wasn’t good enough,” recalled former Bears defensive end Ed O’Bradovich. “Just to hit people wasn’t good enough. He loved to crush people.”
Opposing quarterbacks used to complain that Butkus would bite their biceps in the pileups.
That was how it was when football was football.
Now it’s a game for sissies, and Goodell hands out fines like expensive traffic tickets for minor rough-ups.
Heck, he even fined Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones $250,000 for flipping the bird at MetLife Stadium fans.
How sensitive Roger has become.
He’s clearly spending too much time with his dainty wealthy neighbors in ritzy Prout’s Neck – where he owns a multi-million dollar oceanfront home – too focused on sipping wine with extended pinkies to tolerate a little toughness on the gridiron.
Come on Roger, drop the wine glass, grab a beer like a man and grow a pair – probably the easiest way for you to increase NFL viewership.
Make Football Great Again.
Speaking of which, even President Trump has weighed in on football’s degradation, blasting Goodell for a new kickoff rule designed to reduce head-on collision injury.
“Sissy football is bad for America, and bad for the NFL!” Trump recently posted on Truth Social. “Who comes up with these ridiculous ideas?”
The “Girly Man,” that’s who.
For those who aren’t old enough to remember, the girly-man analogy derives from Saturday Night Live actors Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon, who used to stuff their sweatsuits with foam rubber as “Hans and Franz,” characters in what was a recurring sketch called “Pumping Up with Hans & Franz.”
They spoke in feminine Austrian accents and it was all a spoof on famed world-class body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But one day Schwarzenegger – who never needed foam rubber to “pump up” his muscles – actually showed up on the set for a guest appearance, sneered at Hans and Franz, and called them “girly men.”
The Giants’ Cam Skattebo AKA “Crayon Eater” is what we need more of. The guy literally screamed “physicality” at a recent special-teams meeting when the coach asked what the job of a football player is.
Roger that.
Jack Lambert of the Steelers once said “if I had to play football in a tuxedo I’d still be the dirtiest man on the team.”
When an opposing player went after his kicker Lambert grabbed him by the jersey and threw him to the ground, firing up the Pittsburgh crowd.
Lambert played football like it mattered – for 11 years. It got him four Super Bowl wins.
Today Goodell would have him in leg irons.
Take linebacker Chuck Bednarak, aka Concrete Charlie, of the Eagles, who threw Giants halfback Frank Gifford to the ground in 1960 so hard Gifford remained unconscious as he was carted off the field.
A nearby sports writer who saw the play said that when Gifford hit the ground he heard “a crack like an axe splitting a log.”
Cheers!
