In recent days, a couple of NFL players have chosen to tell the fans who buy the tickets how to behave.
Washington Redskins rookie linebacker Robert Henson, who didn’t even play in Sunday’s game, went public via Twitter that fans were “dim wits” for booing the team in a rather ugly win and asked how people who worked “at McDonald’s” could know what’s best for the team.
And Chicago Bears defensive end Adewale Ogunleye, in a blog he writes for the Chicago Tribune’s website, offered that folks who choose to boo at games should “stay home.”
Hmm. Any team that has a full house on game day in these economic times with the unemployment numbers nationally what they are should advise all of the employees to just leave well enough alone.
I do understand at least part of the players’ issues on this issue. That most people hear about the money involved in the biggest contracts around the league and assume everybody is paid that way.
That perhaps people don’t always remember a team can cut a player at any time, a career today, on the street tomorrow. That most careers don’t last three years. That the physical beating that comes from the game usually lasts a lifetime even in the best-case scenarios, and often players are left without enough insurance to deal with that for the remainder of their lives.
That professional football, in short, can be a cruel and painful business that often doesn’t love the players back after they play it.
But to lash out at the fans is misplaced, and the technology now available to do that simply speeds the mistake around the globe.
People boo for the same reasons some yell at the person behind the counter at a department store who didn’t get a signing bonus. Because they’re frustrated, aggravated, sometimes rude, or simply redirecting any difficulties they’re having in their own lives on somebody else.
People boo because it costs a lot of money to buy the seat, park the car, buy the food, buy the gear. And then toss in a recession that has, frankly, emptied out a lot of life savings and scared a lot of people about the future, and the recipe is there for a quick and sometimes negative reaction to what’s going on in front of them, especially if it isn’t all that entertaining.
Especially if it all feels like it wasn’t worth it.
And I have yet to meet a player in the league in more than two decades who would cart his family to the last row of the upper deck year after year to even watch the team he once played for.
Yes, some fans act up, some behave in ways — with children down the aisle — that should never be tolerated in a cellblock, let alone a public place.
But with a league built on television revenues because fans watch (for whatever their reasons for tuning in), playing in stadiums largely built with public money because fans want to go, to try to get the last word on Twitter is just plain
Dmb.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
