In late 2003, the NFL muscled ESPN into dropping the popular cable television series “Playmakers.”
It was labeled as unflattering to the league and was even called racist by several black sports columnists.
ESPN caved in because it could not afford to lose the NFL contract that helped make it the king of cable sports, and the NFL was too shortsighted to see that this fictional show presented no harm to the league or its players.
So, with “Playmakers” gone, the SportsEye gives you the following few weeks in the NFL. You decide if the TV fictional program and its characters even came close to this reality show
Coach Mike Martz of the Rams is repeatedly stabbed in the back by people in his own front office while team president John Shaw is off in California somewhere. The owner, Georgia Frontiere, knows nothing about football and could care less. She only owns the team because she fell backwards into money when her husband mysteriously fell off a yacht many years ago. Shaw then comes to St. Louis, threatens everyone with dismissal who does not back Martz, only to learn within a week that one of Martz’s heart valves is infected and he has to step away from the team for an indefinite period of time.
The Baltimore Ravens implode on the field during a game at Detroit. A ref is bum rushed and bumped by a player who weighs twice as much as he does. Another player grabs a ref’s arm and shoves him, both leading to injections. There are no less than eight personal fouls called on the Ravens, and coach Brian Billick had the nerve to say his team did not have a discipline problem. That same day, Rondi Barber of the Tampa Bay Bucs accidentally clips a ref with a right cross while scrapping with a New York Jets player, sending the ref to the ground in a semi-conscious state.
Then, of course, there is the Minnesota Vikings bye-week Love Boat excursion. Sex, drugs and strippers are all alleged to have been part of this merriment on the high seas of Lake Minnetanka.
Speaking of illegal dugs, the always out-of-control Bill Romanowski admitted tearfully on “60 Minutes” last Sunday that he had used steroids, human growth hormone and injected himself with live sheep cells during the waning years of his career. Sheep cells? Not even “Playmakers” could come up with such nonsense.
What’s left that “Playmakers” had that the NFL didn’t like?
Violence! Seattle Seahawks safety Ken Hamlin was in serious but stable condition earlier this week with a fractured skull and other head injuries following a fight outside a downtown Seattle nightclub. While the early details seem to show that two men attacked him for pretty much no reason, the altercation took part in the early hours of the morning outside a nightclub. And to add a touch more sadness to the troubled life of Leonard Little, the Rams linebacker’s brother was shot and killed Monday afternoon in the Knoxville, Tenn., area at a friend’s home.
There is the New Orleans Saints’ pitiful situation, which was exacerbated by the league forcing the team to play a home game in New York and a ridiculous ref’s call that cost them last Sunday’s game. This led frustrated coach Jim Haslett to curse the officials’ call in last week’s postgame news conference. Lastly, Teddy Bruschi suffered a stroke eight months ago and is now returning to practice with the blessing of “doctors.” Witch doctors?
All this really happened, yet the NFL had trouble with “Playmakers.”