Coach Tuesday

But it’s not just cops. You can get shot while jogging. You can get framed while bird watching. There is racism everywhere, even if it wasn’t your reality it’s the reality for many. Again, now is the time to LISTEN, something folks hate doing these days.

I did not. I grew up in a white suburb with peaceful cul-de-sacs and no fear of interacting with the police. I’m fortunate and I realize it, but it’s time for me and others like to me quietly listen to what it was like for people who grew up in a very different America.

Totally. One of my African-American friends invited a few of us to his house tonight for a backyard dinner and so he could talk through some of this - what he experienced growing up and how difficult a conversation he just had to have this week with his ten year-old son - he texted us that he “ruined his innocence telling him what he has to look forward to and watch out for.” Brutal. As his buddies we’re happy to go listen. I encourage others to take this moment to do the same: listen. It’s critical.

Then I'm an idiot - I legit don't understand who is talking and what they're saying.

It's in the locked Brees thread on the main page, easy to find.

Can someone please interpret the millennialese for me?

And that's yet another aspect to it. Legions of people believe (and some have said to to me), in words or substance, since "we" (white people) pay "them" (black athletes) millions of dollars to entertain us, "they" should stand for the anthem. Or alternatively (as expressed by a poster in another one of the Brees threads): "we" (white people) built this society, "they" (black people) didn't and they're just disrespecting and looting it. Folks actually believe that. Let me be clear about it: if you believe those things, you're probably a racist. That's my opinion.

You are painting with too broad a brush. You may well not have a racist intent when arguing “all lives matter,” but there are many in society - and on this board - who are closeted racists, who legitimately believe that black people are predisposed to criminality and that police brutality is a natural and appropriate reaction to “thug culture,” and who hide their true beliefs in the shadows and use “all lives matter” as a Hawaiian shirt, a seemingly unassailable and inoffensive gesture with a deeper, malevolent intent. Seriously, those people exist, there are legions of them, I suspect several posters in this thread even.

That is really well-said. To put it another way: the fact that the message makes you uncomfortable (in its content OR the timing and manner of its expression) makes First Amendment protection for it all the more necessary. (Putting aside, for now, the public/private employer issue which is actually very complicated here.)

To be fair that’s not quite true, one of his teammates literally said Brees should just keep his mouth shut.

“Peaceful protests against police brutality” vs. “disrespecting the flag” has become the new “line in the sand” in the ongoing (and frankly, utterly exhausting) culture war. No one is actually listening to what the other side is saying. There are hypocrites among both sides of the issues: many in the “pro-Flag” contingent are fine looking the other way while other sacred symbols (like the Bible, for example) are co-opted and disrespected by leaders they agree with. On the other side, telling the “pro-Flag” folks not to express their views at all (“Brees should just shut up”) seems incredibly counterproductive and at odds with freedom of expression. And then there’s the lurking racism motivating SOME of the “pro-Flag” contingency, which is intentionally frustrating in that it’s hidden - it’s like the Hawaiian shirt thing, it’s a subtle and seemingly inoffensive expression that is intended to signal to like-minded folks that they’re on the same team. Again, it’s all incredibly exhausting, and the internet has made it worse - no one ever changes their mind or truly listens. I just want to watch football.

Drew Brees was estranged from his late mother, who was a sitting judge - I believe he got a restraining order against her. Not really germane to what’s being discussed here other than I always found that story fascinating and left me thinking he was a more complicated individual than his public persona reflected. He also always struck me as having his eye on a Senatorial bid someday so his remarks should be viewed through that lens as well.

Yes, agree completely. And when you shut down an avenue of peaceful protesting such as kneeling for several seconds in support of a cause, you indirectly funnel the outrage elsewhere, folks feel more powerless and less heard, and protesting takes on a more chaotic, destructive form.

We’re squarely within the “some guy said something” phase of the offseason...

Two words: Mark Ingram.

Zombie League

Amazing that he was wearing his Bills shirt - the Pegulas are gonna love this.

Some of these guys are so incredibly stupid. The amount of money they piss away because of a lack of discipline and a sense of entitlement is staggering. New York Giants: “Plaxico, we’ll give you $50 million dollars, all you have to do is not shoot yourself in the leg.” Plaxico Burress: “Hold my beer.”

I would like @Rico to declare this thread “another Whaley gem” so we can all move on.

He also believes the world is flat... Not sure if that's in the article, I didn't read all of it because that web page is killing my CPU.

Albert Breer’s MMQB ”This, of course, is a big year in Buffalo. Expectations are probably in a place they haven’t been since Jim Kelly retired. McDermott’s in his fourth year. GM Brandon Beane just wrapped up his third draft. Josh Allen and Tremaine Edmunds, still just 23 and 22, respectively, and the faces of the new Bills on each side of the ball, are headed into Year 3. And that’s without even getting to what everyone in the rest of the football world wants to talk about: For the first time in forever, with Tom Brady now in the NFC South, it sure feels like the AFC East is up for grabs, and no one’s better positioned to take advantage than Buffalo.”

Humanity: The Series Finale.

You know you’ll watch...

It was purposely set up to fail. Putting the union boss (Riveron) in a position where he had to undermine his constituents on live TV was never going to work. The NFL doesn't care, it prints money with little regard or concern for the integrity of the game.

My takeaway from this? The curse word filter remains stuck in the early aughts.