Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
Despite the issues of concussions, domestic violence and unfair treatment of certain athletes, a panel of highly acclaimed sports media personalities disagreed Tuesday that the National Football League is in crisis.
“I don’t necessarily think there is a crisis in the NFL,” said Kevin Blackistone, a journalist for multiple television sports talk shows who also teaches at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Blackistone gave the example of one of the best college athletes who had to decide whether he wanted to play in the NFL or for Major League Baseball, and he chose to enter the NFL draft so he can play next season. This should be a sign if one of the top athletes in the country wants to come play a more dangerous sport that it isn’t dying at the moment, Blackistone concluded.
If you look at a crisis as something that will kill or ruin the sport, there doesn’t appear to be a crisis at this time, added Pete Gilbert, the sports anchor and reporter at WBAL-TV.
Blackistone and Gilbert were part of a Towson University panel that focused on key issues in the NFL. They were joined by Ray Feldman and John Eisenberg. Feldmann is a public relations professional and CEO of FC Strategies. Eisenberg is the author of “The League,” a book about the history of the NFL. The TU Department of Mass Communication sponsored the panel, which gathered in the South Campus Pavilion.
The panel discussed multiple issues dogging the NFL through the years, including concussions, domestic violence and Colin Kaepernick, a football quarterback who last played for the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL in 2016 after protesting racial injustice.
Blackistone noted a study released years ago about the change of language used by the media when talking about concussions and hits to the head.
Eisenberg pointed to tougher rules and specially designed helmets as evidence that the NFL is doing a lot to protect players from concussions. He said the league is investing a lot of money so players are more protected throughout their career.
“If you put them [NFL players] back on the field when they aren’t healthy then you are most likely hurting your investment,” said Eisenberg.
The doctors, owners and others investing in the teams have realized over the years that they are paying the players a large amount of money, so they should be more concerned whether the player is healthy enough to return to the field, said Eisenberg.
Domestic Violence
“The reality is anything happening now the league has seen before,” said Eisenberg.
For example, Blackistone pointed to Ray Rice, a former Baltimore Ravens running back caught on video beating his fiancée and dragging her body out of an elevator. And, he mentioned the Giants CEO Larry Baer in an altercation with his wife.
“I don’t think of Ray Rice as the face of domestic violence, but I think of the judge in Alabama or the CEO who kicked his wife repeatedly,” said Blackistone.
Ravens fans burned their jerseys after players took a knee during the National Anthem in London, but when it was speculated that Ray Rice was involved in domestic violence fans just wanted him to be the running back, he noted.
“Nothing happens in a vacuum,” said Feldman. “When someone punches someone in an elevator or when something happens to Freddie Gray, people already have feelings about it.”
Kaepernick and Women in the NFL
When the discussion turned to Kaepernick and his protests against racial injustice and systematic oppression in the country, Blackistone asked if any students in the audience have kneeled during the National Anthem at a football game. None of the students raised their hands.
“See, it’s not easy to do something that Kaepernick did,” said Blackistone.
Kaepernick and the NFL recently agreed upon a settlement for the former quarterback’s grievance against the league. He reportedly was given nearly $10 million in a settlement.
“The situation with Kaepernick is interesting because it shows how the NFL likes to deal with a problem,” said Blackistone. “It is still unclear how much Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reed got paid but it was enough to keep them quiet.”
Reed, a football safety for the Carolina Panthers, joined a growing number of athletes who chose to sit or kneel during the National Anthem.
Gilbert disagreed with Blackistone.
“The NFL hopes that the problems will go away, and they will just stick their heads in the sand and if it doesn’t go away then they will cut a check,” said Gilbert.
A huge controversy with the Kaepernick situation is whether the NFL could suppress his freedom of speech and the freedom to kneel during the National Anthem in protests of unarmed black men being killed. While the First Amendment does protect such freedom of speech to protests in public and under a public institution, some say this isn’t the case with the NFL since the league is actually a private company. And the First Amendment does, indeed, not interfere with a private company’s rights and their own policies. However, Blackistone said that this made an even bigger impact.
“Colin Kaepernick became such a big thing because he chooses to show his disdain with the killing of innocent black men with the flag in the NFL,” said Blackistone.
Kaepernick’s protest eventually led to an endorsement deal with Nike. And that endorsement deal boosted Nike’s stock prices to an all-time high of $83.47 per share, leaving many anti-Kaepernick protesters completely speechless.
“So many NFL teams were so afraid to sign Kaepernick,” said Gilbert. “But as soon as Nike did, their stuff exploded. And it’s crazy that no team noticed, that signing him, so many people would back the decision.”
The men acknowledged that women are gaining recognition in the NFL. And while the progress has been slow, the sports personalities agreed the movement has certainly made its way into the league. Saints owner Gayle Benson and Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey have broken into the front office portion of the NFL in recent years since they are now women who own professional football teams, the panel agreed.
A student, Malik Jarrett, 20, asked the panel whether we’ll see women actually play in the NFL in the next 20 years or so.
“Never say never,” Feldmann said. “People have said that women aren’t going to be astronauts, yet they are. But I hope there are more women on the sidelines as coaches and in the executive office as owners.”