Roger Goodell’s Pagan NFL – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Sunday mornings are a time of relative peace at the Kengor abode, or at least as much as possible with a family of 10, plus in-laws, guests, and various others buzzing about the place. Sunday morning is about church, or Mass for us Catholics, as it has been for Americans for centuries. It’s a different day, a day for faith, for God. The morning is devoted to getting ready for church.
The idea of a national audience for one big game on Christmas Day — even as fans were not clamoring for it — was apparently irresistible to Goodell and gang.
Unless you’re the National Football League.
This past Sunday morning, that spirit of peace at the Kengor home in western Pennsylvania was ripped with dissension. That’s because the NFL decided to broadcast the Pittsburgh Steelers versus Minnesota Vikings game at 9:30 a.m. Naturally, this set up a confrontation among the youngest boys who play and watch football and their mom and pretty much everyone else who doesn’t want the TV turned on Sunday mornings. Would we click on the game or not?
(Don’t tell me to simply record the game. That’s not the damned point. Read on.)
The NFL made this mess by scheduling the Steelers to play the Vikings in Ireland, the first ever NFL game in Dublin — as part of its campaign to further internationalize the sport. Even then, in no way did this mean it was necessary to start the game at 9:30 a.m. After all, Dublin is only five hours from us on Eastern Standard Time. The usual time for the first round of NFL games has long been 1:00 p.m. — that is, after church/Mass. That same time could have easily been arranged this past Sunday. The game would have kicked off at 6:00 p.m. in Dublin. It would have started in daylight and then went under the lights, started well before the NFL’s Sunday night games in the United States.
But no, the NFL insisted on airing this game in America on Sunday morning.
For the record, the NFL long ago began tugging Sundays away from churches. In part, this was done because college football was played on Saturdays. Thus, pro football went for Sundays. Even then, the NFL was respectful enough of church days to wait until after church services to schedule kickoffs. That’s a key reason for the standard 1:00 start time.
This most recent move by the NFL and its commissioner, Roger Goodell, reverses that respect for keeping Sunday mornings sacred. And worse, this isn’t a onetime thing. It’s part of a rising infringement by the NFL. Look at what happened last Christmas.
Christmas last year fell on a Wednesday — a day when the NFL never hosts games. The league schedules games on Sundays, Monday nights, even Thursday nights, and on Saturdays during playoff season. Wednesdays are out, if not impossible. Players can’t play consecutive games with such a short rest week. Last year, however, the NFL changed its tune.
The idea of a national audience for one big game on Christmas Day — even as fans were not clamoring for it — was apparently irresistible to Goodell and gang. The league scheduled a Christmas Day contest between the defending Super Bowl champs, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The players were not happy about it, including Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs quarterback and a devout Christian.
For the Chiefs, this move wasn’t bad merely for religious reasons. The unprecedented Wednesday game meant the team would play three games in 11 days near the end of a new 17-game season that’s already brutal on players’ bodies. “It’s not a good feeling,” Mahomes had told reporters on December 11 — ironically, before he got injured the following weekend. “You never want to play this amount of games in this short of time. It’s not great for your body.”
The greedy NFL didn’t give a rip about its star players’ bodies nor holy days.
I must note, however, that the NFL does honor some “holy” events. It now commemorates an entire month — the American secular left’s new holy month: Pride Month. The NFL celebrates Pride Month the entirety of June. It created a “Football is Gay” promotional campaign. This is especially remarkable because the NFL has no games or even training camp in June. It’s a dormant football month. And yet, the NFL pauses to honor Pride Month nonetheless, vigorously.
The NFL is not, however, honoring Christmas and Sunday mornings. It’s embracing the path of paganization with the rest of the culture.
As for us in the Pittsburgh area, we are certainly noticing.
My fellow Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton, the famous actor, astutely observed that “in Pittsburgh, football is like a religion, and everyone in town goes to the same church.” You see the guy at the gas station, or the banker or doctor or waitress or lawyer, and you talk about the Steelers.
He’s spot on. And yet, at the same time, these folks in this traditional area in western Pennsylvania still go to regular church, too. We love our churches and our Steelers. This past Sunday morning, the NFL pushed us to choose one over the other.
It was not the first time and clearly will not be the last.
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