hurtinbuckaroo
Contributor
As a hockey fan, the NHL was always under fire over violence in the sport (even decades ago... fuck I'm getting old), including fighting. Yet baseball brawls were looked to as fanciful and football, well that is football.
Hence the joke, "I went to the fights last night, and a hockey game broke out."
The goons who took over for a couple of decades almost destroyed the sport. Baseball fights are very infrequent, and usually look more like a drunken fire drill than an actual conflict.
It will be interesting to see if the NFL adopts a "targeting" rule next year, and starts ejecting players.
If the NFL wants to control this behavior it merely needs to treat it like it treats off field behavior, something it has not done to this point.
I think in the end it is all about ratings, and people like drama, Elliot's final suspension and Jones's antics being good examples. These things keep people tuning in just as much as savage play on the field. The NFL's handlers know this, that it's all about the show, and that the show has many acts.
Just don't take a knee, because that would be "the inmates running the prison".
