Welcome to your Monday roundup of the best and worst of NFL Sunday — by which we mean the single very best thing and single very worst thing. Because the stuff in the middle doesn’t matter, really.
THE BEST OF NFL SUNDAY: Don’t look now but the Jacksonville Jaguars are in first place in the AFC South and have a league-best plus-56 point differential. The Jaguars went in to Pittsburgh and beat up the once big, bad Steelers. The young Jags secondary intercepted Ben Roethlisberger five times, which is the most in his career. Nobody thought Jacksonville would be this good, this fast.
Their defence is allowing just 16.6 points per game, second only to the Buffalo Bills.
But the most intriguing part of their team is the emergence of Leonard Fournette. Evidently, he was right when he said after beating the New England Patriots in the pre-season that the NFL is easier than he thought it would be. On Sunday, he put up 181 yards and two touchdowns on 28 carries versus a veteran defence.
Fournette now has 466 yards and five touchdowns on the season and is the only player who can challenge Kareem Hunt for rookie of the year.
LEONARD FOURNETTE WAVED ON THE HIT! pic.twitter.com/5MaNCZ5zMd
— Big Cat Country (@BigCatCountry) October 8, 2017
Fournette is the only player in the league who can stiff-arm Bud Dupree, outrun pursuit angles and then wave on a hit from Mike Mitchell mid-play. Fournette didn’t even try to evade the hit and Mitchell went low. He plays tailback like something out of American Gladiators.
So congrats, Shahid Khan — it took a while, but you’ve got one of the easiest teams to root for in the NFL.
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THE WORST OF NFL SUNDAY: NFL anthem protests have become a routine part of the pre-game pageantry each week. This will anger the “stick to sports” crowd who don’t want their Sunday entertainment sullied with any talk of substance. But if the athletes and broadcasters should stick to sports maybe it’s time for the politicians to stick to politics.
That didn’t happen this weekend as Mike Pence used the platform of a NFL game honouring Peyton Manning as a vehicle for propaganda and pandering. Pence took to Twitter to alert everyone who follows him that he was leaving the game between the San Francisco 49ers and Indianapolis Colts because players knelt during the national anthem.
Pence’s reasoning was he “will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.” The VP failed to mention the racial inequality or police brutality the players’ protests aim to create a conversation about.
Clearly the former Governor doesn’t have NFL Sunday ticket as the 49ers have been kneeling en masse for weeks.
Eric Reid, who first knelt with Colin Kaepernick last year, called Pence’s display a “PR stunt.”
“My honest reaction: Does anybody know the last time he’s been to a football game? … He tweeted out a three-year-old photo of him at a Colts game, so with the information I have, the last time he was at a Colts game was three years ago. So, this looks like a PR stunt to me. He knew our team has had the most players protest. He knew that we were probably going to do it again. This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.”
Reid’s assumption was corroborated by U.S. President Donald Trump himself as he indicated he instructed Pence to leave if and when protests took place.
Which calls into question what is the cost-benefit analysis of going out of your way to attend an NFL game you know you’re just going to leave in disgust?
That is, unless you’re using the many eyeballs on the NFL and the contentious atmosphere around the NFL to further your political agenda and influence the league.
Like, for example, when Trump bragged about calling Jerry Jones about players kneeling after the Cowboys owner knelt with his team before the anthem on Sept. 25.
No coincidence Jones has since came out strong against kneeling.
“We cannot in any way give the implication that we tolerate disrespecting the flag,” Jones said post-game on Sunday. “We know that there is a serious debate in this country about those issues, but there is no question in my mind that the NFL and the Dallas Cowboys are going to stand up for the flag.”
Not surprisingly, no Dallas player has taken a knee during the anthem, although David Irving and Damontre Moore raised their fists at the end of the anthem on Sunday.
Also not surprisingly, Jones won’t be hiring the face of the movement, Colin Kaepernick, any time soon.
Remember, Jones was one of nine NFL owners who each gave over $1 million to Trump’s campaign, as was Jim Irsay of the Colts who hosted Pence at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Sports can be used as the great facilitator. Sadly, that’s not happening. Instead, NFL fans are being asked to choose sides in what are already divisive times — not by the players, but by the politicians.
