Tom Cable Ruined My Sunday

The kids were fed, the dog was walked and I had settled my brain for it's customarily fulfilling eight hours of Sunday football.  I started as I always start with Berman and the gang over at ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown, and cousin, it made me squirm.  Not on account of the jokes, those crumby jokes warm that “warm peanut butter cookie and playoff sex” part of my heart like a glass of Crown Royal.  No, what made me cringe was the piece of investigative journalism concerning Tom Cable’s bringing the pain to his assistant coach’s jaw two weeks prior. 

After the police decided the case didn’t warrant the laying of charges, ESPN’s Colleen Dominguez did a little digging and put together a regular “This is your Life” featuring a train of ex-wives and girlfriends Coach Cable had kicked the shit out of.  They made a pretty good case for old Tom being the biggest asshole in all of football today and even suggested that though all the incidents were investigated,  his position on the team was what really kept him out of trouble.        

This shocked me on two counts;

Firstly, that ESPN has the capacity for investigative journalism.  CNN doesn’t have the budget for investigative  journalism.  Have we have reached the point where sports writing is the only arm of the profession with license to challenge men in authority?  ESPN is actually armed to tackle issues as serious as domestic abuse and they can do it without fear of being called fascists on the left and terrorist sympathizers on the right.  Furthermore, they can do it on a Sunday morning, surely the most effective place to distress the comfortable.

  Second,  ESPN aired a piece that shone a bright light on the NFL’s dirty laundry.  They bit the hand that feeds them, lays golden egg after golden egg, and puts their kids through college handily.  Without all due respect, and there is a great deal offered up, this is fishy as all hell. 

The National Football League loves women.  Every year more and more are tuning in on Sundays, and beyond that, they are the mothers, sisters and wives of the God fearing athletes that butter their bread.  If you hadn’t noticed, this year they’re sporting pink like it was going out of style, and it sure doesn’t become a league that talks up curing breast cancer on one hand to be coddling serial woman beaters on the other.  Furthermore, the league genuinely strives to frame a narrative that shows them taking the higher ground on issues of ethics.  Point in case, the Michael Vick Eagles press conference, where Tony Dungee and Jeffery Lurie evoked American redemption and Christian forgiveness to explain their decision.  In the case of Tom Cable however,  the only option besides hoping it blows over, is to throw him to the dogs.

 

Officially the NFL had no comment on the matter, but it really is giving ESPN a lot of credit to to think they have gone independently and clearly shamed the league,  ostensibly prodding them into action. 

A hypothesis then:  The league has a scumbag coach they know is as guilty as the day is long, but they have a police department clearing him of all charges.  That’s the last thing they want to contradict,  but at the same time they need to protect their image and get rid of an obviously destructive  influence.  So the NFL sanctions the ESPN piece that introduces the new evidence of Tommy Boy’s previously silent victims, waits for the outcry from the usual suspects, and placates by canning Cable, saving face and appearing proactive.  These guys should be running the Whitehouse, if they aren’t already.