Why I m Going to Watch the Nfl Again

Following an NFL weekend that saw players and teams respond to President Trump'due south comments about the league with more demonstrations during the anthem, The MMQB received numerous emails from NFL fans who said they'd had enough of politics mixing with sports and are done watching the NFL. Here are some of those letters.

(The following letter was sent to the Steelers' ticket office and the office of the NFL commissioner, and cc'd to talkback@themmqb.com.)

Dear Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL:

I desire to thank you lot for freeing upward my Sundays. Some of the earliest memories of my life are watching Steelers games with my dad. I was one time a season-ticket holder. I have occasionally missed a few games on Boob tube through the years due to scheduling conflicts, merely I tin can honestly say in my 44 years of living, I have never intentionally turned off a Steelers game. That changed today. As I sat down to sentry the Steelers-Bears game today, I learned from the sideline reporter that the Steelers chose not to participate in the national canticle. I realize that in that location is a lot of injustice in our land. I realize that in that location are a lot of people upset at the current assistants. I realize that we live in a free country where people accept the freedom to not participate in the national anthem. I also have the freedom to non spend another minute or dollar on your product. I am of the opinion that this is quite perhaps the worst way to go about "protesting." If you want to hold a rally at Heinz Field to permit your players to vocalisation their opinions, that would exist fine.  If yous want all the Steelers and NFL players to march on Washington D.C., fine. Just to non participate in the national anthem is an insult to every serviceman who has served or has passed away defending this country. If you are truly that unhappy with the country, experience free to play for the CFL. So thank you, Steelers and NFL, for freeing upward my Sundays.  I volition no longer waste my time or money watching your production. The weather today the in Pittsburgh surface area is cute and I can not call back of a improve day to spend it outside, away from the TV. — Jim Coletti, erstwhile fan

I am in my 40s, and every bit long as I can remember the NFL has been part of my life (I was always told, I was born a Raiders fan). Football had get my break and my escape from the rest of the world. No matter what was going on everywhere else in the world, I could melody into a game on Dominicus, plough the dial to sports radio or skip the other sections of the newspaper and become straight to sports. Sports could exist my little oasis away from it all.

Occasionally, politics and sports collided, just it was mostly just a side note and we got dorsum to the sports. Unfortunately, politics take now taken a front seat in the NFL. Sports radio all week talked about Donald Trump and protests. The pregame shows made it a huge part, including going to the commercial break, "We will be right back for our national anthem," which they never announced earlier. Sports radio this morning seemed to all lead off with anthem protestation talk. And despite an heady day in the NFL with endless storylines involving the actual play on the field, The MMQB [column] leads off with the political angle.

This isn't an NFL players need to stick to football opinion. I am non racist or a Trump supporter (the default accusations I become when I land this opinion). I am just a lifelong fan who enjoyed having football exist my intermission from all of this, and information technology no longer is. If I went to the theater to sentinel a movie, and earlier the motion picture, during the movie and then after the movie I had to mind to PSAs regarding the actors'/actresses' political stances, I would quit going to movies, just like I am going to quit watching and reading near the NFL.

I was surprised at how hard and emotional it was to make this decision. I didn't realize how passionate a fan I was until I decided it was time to leave. Thank you for your many years of providing me great reading material while I had my java and breakfast on Mondays mornings.  Y'all were part of my weekly routine, which will now be changing starting this Sunday, when I will exist on a lake fishing instead of a couchsurfing. — Tim, signing off

As a 24-year veteran, I took an adjuration to support and defend the Constitution. When American citizens exercise their Constitutional rights, it lets me know I did my job whether I hold with them or non. While I don't retrieve the flag or national anthem should be used in protests, I support anyone's right to practice so.

Nevertheless, I detest politics. It's all over social media, television ... I can't even get out anymore without overhearing people having heated political discussion. Football game used to provide me an escape from all that crap. Now politics has infiltrated something I used to love. I have been an NFL fan since 1978. I spent every Sunday watching the games. I knew this past Sunday was going to suck, so I went sailing instead. It was nice. Out on the water lone with my thoughts. I recall I may have watched my last NFL game. — Kevin Williams

I have cancelled NFL Dominicus Ticket and will be sending the remaining money to www.leadthewayfund.org. I've been reading MMQB for years, merely that too will stop. I will no longer be supporting anything NFL or NFL-next going forward. Make yourselves feel expert near rich athletes protesting inequality all you desire, but real people in America are working hard to live decent, productive lives, and we don't need politics infused in what was in one case an escape. Expect forrad to the standard MMQB response of "... so don't read the column if you don't agree with us." Reaffirms my position. — Keith in San Diego (and yes, Chargers leaving hasn't helped)

Coil to Continue

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I am a football game fan, always have been. I am no longer watching. I have cutting down my consumption of sports radio and columns. I remember I speak for a large grouping.I accept 18 stations of 24 hour news. I accept a bazillion political websites and talk shows. They are all aroused and opinionated. Good for them, I watch when I need to. Sunday is my escape. Sports are amusement. I need a break from all that anger and yelling and name-calling. Now it permeates my escape. Politics and the editorializing thereof ruins my game-solar day experience. I have plenty stress without twenty minutes of every game and half of all the game stories being more politics. Sports are supposed to be most competition (and beer!), entertainment (and beer!) and a few hours of being occupied by something else too how polarized we all are. In my case, that is why the ratings are down, why the sports stations are declining in viewership, etc. NFL, please get back to football... The fishing shows are just tiresome! — Michael Peters

A Gesture of Support past NFL Owners Is Meaningless without Them Taking Existent Activity

Sonny Jurgensen was my favorite histrion growing upwardly, so you can tell I've been watching the NFL for a while. Watched every bit Baton Kilmer and his wobbly passes replaced him and didn't miss a vanquish. Great time to exist a football fan. Now politics has reared its ugly head and crept into the game. This whole land has gone crazy. Perchance it was escapism, merely it was nice to be able to watch without whatsoever of that in the game. I know there is a lot of social injustice in the earth and the USA might atomic number 82 the way in this, but information technology was dainty to be able to watch a game without any of this involved.

Yesterday was the first Lord's day I didn't watch a infinitesimal of football since before Nixon. Don't plan on watching whatsoever more than. Which really hurts, since I've been a Falcons fan since they drafted Tommy Nobis. If this is what football game has come up to, stick a fork in me, because I'm done. — Richard Watson, Greenville, S.C.

Built-in and raised in Akron Ohio, a stone's through from Pittsburgh, I've been a Steelers fan my unabridged life. No thing what the team was doing, Get-go Amendment or non, the flag and the anthem are for honoring the fallen and those who serve. Unproblematic as that. I will never sentinel an NFL game again. I will never spend a dime on the NFL. And I will be forever heartbroken on Sundays. Goodbye my Steelers. Adieu. —James

Roger Goodell and the feckless owners have ruined America'south favorite pastime for millions of Americans. May it hurt them in the only place where they feel pain: their financial bottom line. I never thought I would be forced to choose betwixt my love of pro football game and fidelity to the patriotic traditions I was raised on, but now that it comes to that, it's a very easy choice. The NFL loses. — Ed Clayton

Unity? The Steelers Mess Shows How Fleeting the Idea Is

I'm disgusted by these players and owners not standing for the national anthem. I completely support President Trump on this result.

The NFL is the only sport and league that I follow anymore. Not at present. As of this moment I'm boycotting all things NFL and by association this website, until I hear that owners and players have come to their senses. If they desire to protestation racism in this country, there has to be a better way than dissing the flag and all that have fought for the freedoms nosotros savor.
Huzzah to President Trump. A pox on Commissioner Goodell and the NFL's owners. The NFL volition have one less viewer and reader this season. — Todd Greene, San Diego

Have read your cavalcade avidly for years, first thing Monday morning. Beloved your insight into the game and the personalities of those involved. The fact that I don't share your political views in no mode detracts from that enjoyment. Heck, I don't like coffee or the gustation of beer, and you write about those all the fourth dimension. To each his ain.

But like many who I've seen write to y'all earlier (major props for publishing those disquisitional emails) I've become increasingly saddened by the politicization of the game I love. And this from a guy who grew upwardly in a super politically active household. My mom was a Representative in the Arizona Firm for years. I voted for the first fourth dimension on my 18th birthday.  I follow politics closely, reading political columns and newsletters on Monday also, but not until afterward my MMQB.

I'm a pastor who happens to be very much against school prayer. We live in a various society, a guild I share with many people who share my beliefs, and fifty-fifty more who don't. I love the fact that I'm free to believe every bit I do, and even make my living giving weekly presentations most my faith, to which the general public is invited. And the vast majority of those in my community decline. That'southward okay. The same society that grants me the freedom to believe equally I practise gives them every correct to not share my beliefs.

So we make a deal. I can believe like I practice, y'all similar yous do, and we can still be friends and neighbors because we share so many other aspects of our lives that are secular. Similar school. Like sports. We don't live in a theocracy, which is fine by me. If we did, and my faith were not the dominant 1, and then I'd suffer the same fate every bit religious minorities all over the world.

Now imagine a world where my religion was the ascendant i. Where you couldn't watch a picture show, or enjoy a TV show or go to a game without having to sit through a sermon. Where even the news was delivered from the perspective of a religious person. I wouldn't desire to live in that earth.

And still I increasingly feel like I do. I love movies, and used to scout the Oscars every year. But I gave that up when they stopped being about jubilant motion-picture show and turned into a political rally. You lot discover your political views mocked, and feel like yous're on the receiving cease of well, a sermon. Same with the Emmys. Simply I figured that if I didn't want the sermon, I didn't take to sentry.

Football used to exist a place where people of all races, religions and political views could come together. Not anymore. Now you have to sit through the sermon. And the tough things about not liking the sermon is that those preaching information technology love the message. They believe information technology. They think it would be corking if you embraced their belief.  Believe me, I know. So they feel justified in making everything about The Bulletin.

So I'm left with the same option for football that I take for entertainment. If I don't desire to sit through the sermon, I have to turn information technology off.  Information technology but seems like a weird business organization model to actively attempt and run off half your audience, then be stunned when the audition begins to shrink. I want to go on watching. I love football. I play fantasy. I watch the highlight shows, fifty-fifty the cruddy ones.

I guess I just miss the days when sermons were limited to church. — Kevin Carlson, Mesa, Ari.

I've been a Pittsburgh Steeler fan for 54 years, only that clan ended Sunday! Along with that clan, I've ended whatsoever association with the NFL or their sponsors… I'll spend my time watching golf or NASCAR. — Greg Greenman

We turned off football today, for the first time in 30 years. Really, who is allowed to protest at work? The NFL players are at work. I really don't care what they call up, just play ball. The flag means more than to me than a football game. I accept lost so much respect for these men. I volition too not be be buying products that sponsor the NFL. I know I am but one person, only allow's really do something worthwhile, instead of disrespecting the flag. — Cindy Robertson

When the NFL stands upwards I will render to watching NFL football. Actually, I survived quite well no longer watching the Buffalo Bills. — Elona

Question or comment? E-mail us at talkback@themmqb.com.

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Source: https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/27/themmqb-nfl-fans-stopped-watching-colin-kaepernick-anthem-protests-donald-trump-nfl-ratings

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