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The news that Michael Vick would be re-instated into the NFL didn’t come as a shock to me. I always had the feeling he would be allowed to play again if he showed any true signs of genuine remorse. I’m stuck in the middle of the equation because I’m a dog lover and a big NFL fan.
On the other hand, the NFL is the biggest straight out meat market in sports when it comes to acquiring and discarding players. It has to be due to the high attrition rate related to wear and tear and career ending injuries. Consequently, anybody showing any genuine talent will probably be given a chance to line up and give it a go. Michael Vick certainly fits into that category.
In general, the NFL always exits in a paradox. On one hand they are extremely popular, especially on television, and loves to promote itself as an all American sport for the whole family. But in reality, football is a pretty violent, highly mean-spirited game played by hard-nosed men that relish shouting obscenities at each other.
It should be no surprise that such a game would attract young men with highly aggressive hard-nosed personalities, a plus for players that play some positions. A side bar to this is that some players find it hard to turn off their aggressive no holds bared nature outside of the playing field, which has sometimes led to problems with the law.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has instituted what you could call a no nonsense policy for players who step out of line and get convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. He seems to be the sole authority on when or if the offending players will be suspended and for how long. The approach seems credible enough but probably won’t be 100% successful just due to the nature of the game and the type of people it takes to field a competitive team.


This brings me to the Jetsons, a 1960s animated TV show that was the opposite of the Flintstones. It had a futuristic premise that featured all the space age advancements that should have occurred by now, but haven’t exactly come to be. The show featured things like flying cars that folded up into a briefcase, talking robot house keepers, and food machines that deliver a cooked meal in a couple seconds. I’m glad the flying cars haven’t happened .As bad as some people drive I would not want to have to be constantly looking upward in anticipation of two crashed cars landing on my head.
I recall an episode of the Jetsons that included a football game. It wasn’t played by humans, but by robots that were controlled by the team’s coaches. What a boom this would be for the NFL. No dealing with humans and their petty frailties and problems. No injuries, no criminal behavior by players, no annoying flamboyant wide receivers, no agents wanting big contracts for their star players. Just robots or androids you wheel out of a box and send out to play in the games. And if a player should malfunction or break down, you would just haul out an equally skilled replacement and keep playing.
The only people who would probably object would be actual human beings with the skills to play professional football. They could start an alternative old school league but it wouldn’t have the juice of the NFL behind them.
But on the other hand, how long would it be before some overzealous owner got nailed for illegal programming or assembling the team’s robots, resulting in scandalous headlines.
Oh well. Never mind.