NFL Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Why people hated the Yankees

Chief antipathy

Even though I was a fan, I remember why people hated the Yankees when I was growing up. They won too much. From 1949 to 1964, they were in the World Series every year except two, 1954 and 1959, a fact I didn’t even have to look up. They won 9 of the 14 Series. More recently, they won the Series in 2009 but haven’t gotten there since.

I thought about this as I realized I would be rooting against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Though they’ve “only” won two of the last five World Series, in 2020 and 2024, with the expanded number of teams, that’s still quite impressive.

Their current roster has a unicorn. Shohei Ohtani’s legendary game (throwing 10 strikeouts as a pitcher AND hitting three home runs) got the Dodgers there, but I have to root for the underdog.

It’s not that I dislike the Dodgers particularly, though I was distraught when they beat the Yankees in the 1963 Series. I liked Maury Wills, who stole over 100 bases the year before; Junior Gilliam; and Tommy and Willie Davis, who were NOT related. I also admired their two best starting pitchers, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.

Two teams, both established in 1977, will play in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series tonight. The Seattle Mariners have NEVER been in a World Series, and the Toronto Blue Jays won back-to-back Series in 1992 and 1993 but haven’t appeared since.

NFL

I’ve discovered that I have developed an antipathy against the Kansas City Chiefs. Although I was glad they didn’t have a “threepeat” when they lost the Super Bowl in 2025, I was wary about claims that the Chiefs were getting special treatment. Well, until the game against the Detroit Lions on October 12.

I’m still rooting for the Lions, who lost last week and play tonight. And of course, the Buffalo Bills, the only NFL team that plays its home games in New York State, lost last week and have a bye this week.

I’ve discovered that, now that coach Bill Belincheck is coaching in the college ranks, I don’t have the antipathy towards the New England Patriots hat I did for years.

Yes, these are irrational feelings. So it goes.

Documentary review: Kelce

New Heights

After I had read that Philadelphia Eagles and NFL All-Pro center Jason Kelce was contemplating retiring from (American) football after the 2023-2024 season, I watched the Amazon film Kelce. It has become the most-watched documentary on Prime Video.

“Jason Kelce started documenting what he thought was his final year in the NFL “(2022-2023). “Instead, the film intimately captures the most epic year in Jason and Travis’s life.”

The viewer gets a detailed view of Jason’s life. His wife, Kylie, tells about their online meeting and strange first date.

During the offseason, Jason notes how beat up his body was. When he was a young man, his body bounced back quickly. Still, as an old man of 35 or so, with numerous broken and bruised body parts, he wonders whether he can recover well enough to play the game at an elite level.

And he is being paid a lot of money, an estimated $14 million in his 12th season, more than any offensive lineman in the NFL. Jason and Kylie have two young daughters, and he wants to be physically able to play with them. Then Kylie discovers she’s pregnant with their third child, due about two weeks after the Super Bowl.

What will Jason do if he retires? Real estate, farming? He asks some retired Eagles brethren, some of whom thrived while others struggled to find something nearly as rewarding.

Then, the brothers were offered the opportunity to “host the popular New Heights podcast with high-profile sponsors.” Jason has also appeared in various commercials.

Really?

Travis said something his older brother thought was BS, that once you win the Super Bowl and then lose the big game, your desire to win it again becomes even greater. Jason and the Eagles won the February 2018 matchup with the New England Patriots, 41-33. Travis and his Kansas City Chiefs beat the 49ers 31-20 in February 2020 but, a year later, fell to the Tampa Bay Bucs 31-9.

The Eagles and the Chiefs met at the Super Bowl in February 2023. This matchup, brother versus brother, made their mom, Donna, an instant celebrity. The movie was more interesting than I expected, given that the outcome of that last game was well-known.

Rooting interests (NFL edition)

A Bills-Lions Super Bowl would be cool

Part of my enjoyment of watching the National Football League this season was developing rooting interests. Some are long-standing, such as the New York Giants (6-11 this season) I followed as a kid. Likewise, the teams I rooted against.

When the New England Patriots and Tom Brady were winning several Super Bowls, I actively rooted against them. But now that Brady is gone, and the Pats are… not good (4-13), it’s difficult even to care, though I was glad the New York Jets (7-10) beat them on January 7.

Here is my list of rooting interests for teams in the playoffs.

I’m an upstate kid

Buffalo Bills (11-6, 1st in the AFC East) is the only team in the NFL to play its home games in New York State. They got to four Super Bowls in the 1990s and lost them all. The team was 6-6 five weeks ago.

Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7, 3rd in the AFC North) had an up-and-down season. Still, their head coach, Mike Tomlin, has never had a losing season. I’ve been a fan since the 1970s when they had defensive stars as Mean Joe GREENe and L.C. GREENwood. So, who are the Steelers playing this weekend? Sunday, January 14, 2024, 1 p.m. Steelers at Bills (CBS)

Detroit Lions (12-5, 1st in the NFC North) haven’t won their division in three decades. They used to play on Thanksgiving Day and, if I recall correctly, lost often.

Cleveland Browns (11-6, 2nd in the AFC North) is not exactly the team of Jim Brown and Otto Graham as that team moved and became the Baltimore Ravens. (It’s complicated.) They were reestablished in 1999.” From 2003 to 2019, the Browns had a 17-season playoff drought.”

Green Bay Packers (9-8, 2nd in the NFC North) has an exciting and very young team, with many starters in their first or second year. And it’s GREEN Bay.

I rooted for the San Francisco 49ers (12-5, 1st in the NFC West, first-round bye) in the 1980s in the Joe Montana and Steve Young era, and I still have a fondness.

Philadelphia Eagles (11-6, 2nd in NFC East) collapsed in the latter part of the season.

My favorite team from Texas

Houston Texans (10-7, 1st in AFC South) won their division last weekend and have a great rookie quarterback, C.J. Stroud, with a compelling storyline. The Texans are a 2002 expansion team after the Oilers moved to Nashville in 1997 and became the Tennessee Titans. Saturday, January 13, 2024, 4:30 p.m. Browns at Texans (NBC, Peacock)

Miami Dolphins (11-6, 2nd in the AFC East)

Los Angeles Rams (10-7, 2nd in the NFC West) Sunday, January 14, 2024, 8:15 p.m. Rams at Lions (NBC, Peacock)

Baltimore Ravens (13-4, 1st in the AFC, first-round bye) is likely the best team in the NFL after they beat the 49ers and Dolphins back-to-back.

Kansas City Chiefs (11-6, 1st in the AFC West), Super Bowl defending champions, were often underwhelming on the field. But they are overexposed in Allstate commercials and that other thing. Saturday, January 13, 2024, 8:15 p.m. Dolphins at Chiefs (only on Peacock -meh)

Tampa Bay Buccanneers (9-8, 1st in the NFC South), winner of the weakest division Monday, January 15, 2024, 8:15 p.m. Eagles at Buccaneers (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2)

I’ve disliked the Dallas Cowboys (12-5, 1st in the NFC East) for decades. “America’s Team,” indeed. Sunday, January 14, 2024, 4:30 p.m. Packers at Cowboys (Fox)

Comic books, football players, ICE intertwined?

“We found one bloated, cruel, and useless agency that is begging to be abolished.”

My old friend Catbird asked:

Hi Roger—

When I heard rump’s “maybe they shouldn’t be in this country” comment about football players staying in locker rooms the other day, I wondered if they’d “pass” the Comic Book Code of America. I remember you explaining this to me decades ago. I suppose it depends on whether anybody acts on it.

What do you think?

Might it be worth a blog item?

I hope all is well with you and your “bearers of two X chromosomes.”

It had not occurred to me, but I suppose both the Comic Code Authority (1954-2011) and the NFL owners’ new policy requiring on-field player and personnel to stand for the national anthem were both self-regulating actions designed to make the federal government leave them alone.

In the case of comic books, the industry was worrying, rightly, that the government might want to regulate it, to “protect the children.”It agreed submit the comics to a board for a stamp of approval. No excessive violence, no drug use shown, et al.

The owners of the NFL just wanted the bad press to go away – n.b., didn’t happen. They are worried about the bottom line, with ratings down substantially, although that may not be just a function of the anthem imbroglio.

There’s a more significant question you ask here: when DO we say in America, “My way or the highway?” Certainly, I’ve heard, “America, love it or leave it” a few times, usually when I was protesting some war, mostly Vietnam, but also Iraq. Yet, as I was wont to say, “I stay, and protest, BECAUSE I love America.”

When HAS the United States actually thrown people out of the country? In the past, not very often, in the vast scheme. It wasn’t until 2002 when the United States actually had an agency whose primary function appears to do just that.

As Full Frontal with Samantha Bee put it on May 23: “For Republicans looking to cut government fat, we found one bloated, cruel, and useless agency that is begging to be abolished. And no, ‘President’ is not considered an agency.”

It is, of course, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. I appreciate it when the ICE agents remove some MS-13 gang member. But, much more often, they are seen as a source of terror in the immigrant community, even for those who are here legally.

As someone approaching Social Security, I find this problematic, not just from a moral and ethical position, but from an economic one. Driving out productive young people from the country is a recipe for federal fiscal disaster.

So, there’s a lot of bluster about people needing to leave the country. But it won’t be football players going. Unless they were born elsewhere.

Economic Census, Women’s March, football

Some think NFL ratings are down because of players taking of a knee during the national anthem.

A few items that might not generate a whole post:

I went to New York City on January 16 to visit our center at Pace University. The librarians are divvying up the state to find out how we can serve them better. After that, the center director, Andrew. and I met with some folks from the Census Bureau, led by Andy.

Andy and his colleagues were touting the 2017 Economic Census, which will take place electronically in May 2018. This allows them to generate data that help businesses to make decisions on location, demographic trends and the like.

I was REALLY happy I didn’t go down the following day, because it snowed, not just in Albany, but in NYC. Snow in NYC makes travel dreadful.
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A bunch of folks met at my church to walk down to the Women’s March in Albany on January 20. Some guy commenting on my Times Union blog said there wouldn’t be 10 people at the event. I replied that there would be more than that going just from my church, and that was true.

I’m lousy at crowd size guesstimation, but I heard everything from three to six thousand. In any case, there were so many there, good friends of mine who were present I simply did not see. But there they were all over Facebook.

I did not know that nearly 60 protesters from the J20 anti-Trump march in DC last year are still subject to prosecution, though 129 indictments were dropped.
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I tend to watch football only in the last couple weeks of the season and into the playoffs. The first weekend I saw one game, and watched summaries of the three others online. The next weekend, I saw parts of games. But I recorded the last two games and watched them later. The trick, of course, is NOT to watch live TV, check email or social media. Ignorance in this process IS bliss.

There’s been reports that NFL viewing is down. Some think it’s because of players taking of a knee during the national anthem. Others believe it’s that, with the increased reporting of brain damage from CTE, people are less likely to watch it.

I think it is that the official reviews of every touchdown, almost every play in the last two minutes of each half, plus the coaches’ challenges take FOREVER. Still another reason for watching on tape delay. well, not TAPE…

Go, Philadelphia Eagles!