Tearing out the NFL's violent heart

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2012  

BY STEVE JANOSKI

‘At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.’



As with most awful things, it started slowly: a rule change here, an increase in the penalty yardage there.

Sure, there were reasons for some; as players began mutating from normal men to the behemoths that take the field now, the hits got harder, the injuries, more vicious and frequent.

But it seems like in the 1990s, some great movement began to occur in the NFL that started moving football away from its blue collar roots of leather helmets and open playing fields and into the white collar arena where the number of luxury boxes became far more important than who could afford the games.

More domes began to appear, sheltering players and fans alike from the elements, and a huge wildcard — the weather — was eliminated.

And the rules began to change as well to mirror this transition and, eager to protect the million-dollar players who no longer need jobs in the off-season to support their families, the NFL began instituting rules that are slowly robbing the game of the things that made it great.

Rules have been introduced stripping defensive players of their ability to go anywhere near certain offensive players, such as the infamous "roughing the passer" rule, which declares that even the slightest touch from a defensive player could shatter a fragile quarterback, a la the liquid-nitrogen frozen T-1000 in the 1991 classic "Terminator 2."

Players must watch when and where they hit, horse-collar tackles are banned (for what reason?), and four-man wedges on a kickoff are no longer allowed. Fines for plays deemed out of line are as common as a Miami rainstorm.

At this point, the league should look to rename itself the National For the Love of God Don’t Hit Me League.

Again, I understand why these things are done. They slant the game toward more explosive offenses, which is good to attract fans, and protects prized players that earn mountains of cash for the league through their endorsements and the like.

But this year, the league has taken it one step too far, and has truly thrown down the gauntlet with their "defenseless player" rules, which state that a foul is committed if a player "initiates unnecessary contact against a player who is in a defenseless posture."

I’ve seen this penalty called a number of times this year, mostly on defensive backs or linebackers who level some poor receiver sent over the middle on a route that he generally knows will likely have a painful ending if the ball comes his way.

As a former receiver in my younger days, I realize the genesis of this rule. Some of the hits taken while going over the middle, even in practice, were some of the most obscenely brutal because inevitably, you were looking for the ball and not the linebacker coming to lay you down.

But in that way, it was also a mark of honor. If someone said that you were "willing to go over the middle," it meant that you had stones, you could take a hit, and that most importantly, you weren’t scared. You were tough.

This rule totally nullifies the need for that toughness, and soon I expect to see all manners of players shying away from laying big hits for fear of seeing that cursed yellow rag fly through the air afterwards.

Football has always been amongst the hardest games because of the pure physicality needed to survive it; that’s what’s drawn many of us fans to it, and what keeps us watching.

At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.

There was always the chance that sometimes you’d get whacked so hard that you’d see double for a couple of minutes, or your head would hurt for a couple days, but that, simply put, was the price of admission.

Don’t like it?

Find another game where there was no hitting. There were plenty of sports for the weaker of heart.

By the time a man reaches the NFL, though, those with no heart have been weeded out already, and those that step onto that field are as hard as coffin nails.

But if this is the direction that the NFL is truly headed, where they sacrifice the integrity of the game in order to protect their investments and people’s fantasy football players, they may as well ban tackling altogether give the guys pillows to hit each other with.

Sure, they may attract a different audience then… but they’ll probably make more money. And for the NFL execs, that’ll be reason enough.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/136716073_Tearing_out_the_NFL_s_violent_heart_.html?c=y&page=1

Protest organizers speak on Vick appearance in Butler

SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER

Plans continue to take shape for the protest that's scheduled to coincide with Michael Vick's appearance at Main Street's Butler Sports Cards, with animal rights activists vowing to send the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback "a clear message" that he's not wanted in Butler.
The signing will take place on Sunday, June 19, and store owner Jeff Robbins expects that it will draw somewhere around 200 people, all of whom will be paying for the chance to procure the resurgent quarterback's signature.

The event has also drawn the attention of local animal rights activists, many of whom are planning to take to the street to let Vick know that they haven't forgotten his past sins.

Tracey Bradshaw, 36, is a Rockaway native and one of the organizers of the protest. She said that the activists have "no respect for Vick" and are "offended by the fact that he's coming around our area."

Bradshaw said that even though laws aren't as stringent for killers of dogs as they are for killers of humans, "a murderer is a murderer," and Vick coming to Butler is akin to any other murderer "coming to town and signing autographs."

Another of the protest's organizers, Maria Fortunato, 42, of Wayne, said that it was "vile" that he was able to continue on with his career by "doing a little bit of time, saying, 'I'm sorry,' and moving on."

Fortunato said that the goal of the protest is to keep Vick's name in the public eye and remind people of his crimes.

"The dogs don't have a voice," she said. "We need to be their voices and remind people of what he actually did."

Bradshaw said that she hopes that the protest is seen as a cry for stricter laws on animal abuse and reaches the ears of legislators.

"We want to make our point known that we need stricter laws and penalties," she said.

Candace Bright, founder of the foster service Gentle Giants Inc. of Wayne, works with giant breed dogs, many of which have been used as bait dogs in dogfighting operations.

She said that she wants to help remind the American public that animal rights people don't support Vick, and that he is not someone to be idolized even though he is a star athlete.

"I think that he is not a good figure for kids to look up to," she said.

None of the women are content with the 18-month jail sentence that Vick served. Fortunato said he should be in prison for life for what he did, and Bradshaw said that when a "human murders another human intentionally, they spend a lot longer in jail than a year and a half."

Roughly 100 people are expected to show up for the protest, which will start around noon and take place in a cordoned-off section of parking spots across the street from the card shop.

Many of those involved, including Bradshaw and Fortunato, are involved in animal rescue in one way or another and have called their impromptu group "Justice for the Vicktory Dogs."

They will carry signs and posters as well as a Vick piñata that, instead of being bashed open, will serve as a fund-raising tool. Different sums of money will be inserted through various holes cut into the dummy.

At the end of the rally, the money will be sent to the organization "Dogs Deserve Better," which is seeking to buy the Virginia property that once housed Vick's now infamous "Bad Newz Kennels."

Their plan, Bradshaw said, is to turn it into an animal sanctuary.

There is also word that a counter-protest is being planned against the animal rights people, and Bradshaw said they've "gotten quite aggressive" toward her group. Capt. Ciro Chimento, spokesman for the ButlerPolice Department, said that there will be a law-enforcement presence in the area to accommodate the protestors and counter-protestors, should they show up.

However, the loose organizational structure of the protests has given police problems in calculating exactly how many people to expect.

"We do have some traffic diversions scheduled in the event that it gets to those (higher) numbers of people, but we really don't know," he said.

Butler police are working closely with the Morris County Prosecutor's Office and surrounding jurisdictions to gather intelligence and plan for the day, said Chimento.

"We're not expecting any real problems at this point," he said. "We're planning for the worst and hoping for the best… But we're hoping for a very peaceful assembly.

An unredeemable crime?

It may be possible that in some people's eyes, the quarterback will never be forgiven for what he's done, even though he continues to speak at various schools about the evils of dogfighting as part of his community service program.

Recently, he spoke out against an app for Android phones called "Dog Wars," which reportedly allowed users to train and fight virtual dogs against each other. The app has since been pulled.

Fortunato said that maybe she would believe he changed if he takes on a proactive stance toward saving animals after his probation period is over, such as setting up a foundation or injecting money into local shelters in Philadelphia. Even then, she's not sure.

"I don't know if there's anything he could ever do," she said. "But certainly walking the walk instead of just talking out of his piehole would be a start. I wouldn't want him living next to me, just like I wouldn't want a pedophile or murderer living next to me."

Bradshaw said that he "hasn't shown one ounce of remorse" for the crimes, while Bright said that he would have to continue his public speaking and anti-dogfighting awareness campaign.

"He would have to make some major, major amends before I said, 'OK, he's rehabilitated,'" she said.

The organizers are aware of what people are saying— Bright said she has been called a racist and a Nazi, and they've all been subject to various threats over the past weeks in one way or another.

They're willing to take it though.

"A lot of people think that we're just crazy, to just let him be," said Fortunato. "But I don't know how people can just bypass the extreme way he did things."

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

Michael Vick appearance at Butler sports card store draws activists ire

THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Staff  Writer

If throngs of animal rights activists line up outside of Main Street's Butler Sport Cards doors to protest Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick's autograph signing on June 19, store owner Jeff Robbins said he'll be ready for it.

Armed security guards will be on site, and the ButlerPolice Department has been made aware of the potential for problems that might stem from the controversial football player's appearance; already, opponents have created Facebook groups that are trying to "spread the word" about the signing and attempt to gather protesters.



Vick, who is among the NFL's elite quarterbacks, accepted a plea deal in 2007 in relation to running a dog fighting ring that put him in jail for just over 18 months.

Since his release in 2009, the quarterback has clawed his way off of the bench and back to prominence, and is now the Eagles' leader and franchise player. Some fans say that between the prison sentence and his restart at the bottom, he's paid his debt to society.

To others, specifically dog owners or animal rights activists, Vick's debt will never be repaid.

"Michael Vick has a lot of audacity to show up in the good state of New Jersey to make more money than he already has at an autograph signing!" cries the Facebook page "Sick Vick the Dog Abuser Coming toButler NJ." "If you have waited for your chance to let Michael Vick know what you think, this will be your opportunity to have your voice heard!"

About 50 people have replied that they'll be "attending" the protest.

To Robbins, however, it's just business, even if he thinks what Vick did was wrong.

"He's the most desired autograph in all of sports...and Michael Vick has fans, period," he said.

Robbins said that he respects the right of the people to protest, and agrees with them that what Vick did was "100 percent wrong," but he's got the right to have Vick come to his store and sign autographs.

"This is what I do for a living, this is how I pay my bills and support my family," he said. "Whether it's Vick, or Eli Manning, or any other player in any sport, what they do in their personal life is what they do in their personal life. It's not my concern, and if a player is desired...that's what I'm paid to do."

Robbins said that he's done numerous signings with Vick already, and that to him, it's clear that the 30-year-old star has matured far past what he was.

"In my eyes, he's a different person. He never used to want to be bothered, but now he'll stand there and take pictures with his fans, talk with his fans...he's not doing the wrong things that he used to do," he said.

Robbins, who is a season-ticket holder and diehard New York Giants fan, has already had Mario Manningham in for an autograph session, and plans on having Giants running back Danny Ware in store on June 3.

However, he has to pertain to the fan base, and there are a lot of Eagles fans. He expects around 200 people to come in on that Sunday afternoon for autographs on helmets, photos, and jerseys. Tickets for the event start at $90.

There will always be people who hate Vick for what he did, and that's fine, Robbins said. He even applauded the animal rights activists for caring as deeply as they do about their cause, but he is worried that someone might take things too far, especially when attempting to interrupt the signing.



"(The protestors) think they're going to block the entrance to my store, and stand on the sidewalk... theButler Police have said that cannot and will not happen," he said.

He's heard enough of it from the countless phone calls he's been getting at his business, on his cell phone, and at home-but there's "not one chance in hell" that he's going to cancel the appearance.

"I have people mailing things in from California to be signed...I'm here to make my customers happy, not to argue with protestors," he said.

Robbins said that it's also likely that he's going to donate 5 percent of the total made from the session to charity, although he isn't sure which one yet. It may end up being an animal rights group.

"These people will never forgive Michael Vick, and that's their opinion," he said. "In my eyes, he changed, and everybody deserves a second chance."

Whether local animal rights activists will look at it the same way remains to be seen.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

The empty lives of fantasy football junkies

BY STEVE JANOSKI
Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010

We all know a guy like him. He’s been a Giants’ fan since you were in first grade together, but all of a sudden, he comes into the bar with a Maurice Jones-Drew jersey on a Sunday afternoon.

His opening comment is likely going to be along the lines of, “Bro, you’ll never guess who I got on my fantasy team— we’re gonna’ be siiiiick this year.” Clearly, he had the first pick in his fantasy football draft…and then he went out and bought the jersey of the guy he drafted.

Shortly after, he begins listing all the players he chose, and you stop listening and tip your pint glass back in the attempt to stop your ears from bleeding because really, who cares who anybody else has on their fantasy team?

Such is what the first weeks of the football season have become.

Long ago, we used to root for the team we actually liked— now, pretending to be the Jerry Jones of our very own football team has us rooting for players we hate on teams we despise.

I was guilty of this last year when I picked Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber to be on my team, “The Bayshore Yagabawms.”

I should have known better, because as a lifelong Giants fan, nobody has hated the Cowboys organization with more vigor than I.

Regardless, in a move that rivaled Benedict Arnold’s treason, I still picked Barber.

I realized the trappings of fantasy football during the Giants- Cowboys game last year as I watched Barber rip off run after run, killing my team but earning my fake team points.

On one play, he tore through the line and sprung for a 20 or 30 yard run, causing me to curse vehemently at the TV all the while being quietly semi-happy that I was getting fantasy points for it, only to end the play cursing and swearing again when Barber gimped off the field clutching his hamstring seconds later (an injury that put the Yagabawms in the cellar for the rest of the year.)

Fantasy football had turned me into an indecisive, blithering idiot in a matter of seconds, and I felt guilty, dirty even, for having rooted for Barber against my boys for even a second.

This year, although I refused to draft any Cowboys, I made the mistake of trying to manage four different teams simultaneously. What I didn’t realize is that running multiple teams is like trying to date more than one woman at a time— if you think you’re handling it smoothly and things are going well, you’re probably about one step away from a horrific, Chernobyl-style disaster that will leave bodies in the streets and cities destroyed.

Some guys, I’ve heard, have gone as far as managing 10 or 15 leagues at a time.

I don’t know where they find the time to actually watch the games in between managing their mythical teams, but it’s a safe bet that they don’t have to worry about things like dating.

On the other hand, fantasy football does give me a reason to watch games that the Giants aren’t playing in, and offers me someone to root for because, in a roundabout way, I’ve got money on them.

It’s also been adept at getting the general public more into football—one rookie fan I know was overheard during a draft whispering, “What’s a ‘bye week?’”

Now, this Don Quixote of the football world is welded to the TVs at the local dives every Sunday, alternating between fits of joy and despair as the scores tumble and rise—it’s like sitting at a craps table, except the drinks aren’t free and nobody cares when you win.

The NFL has scored huge with fantasy football, and as the game tightens its narcotic grip on the hearts and minds of the young males of this country, one wonders whether “Draft Day” will eventually become a holiday, like some say the day after the Super Bowl should be.

If it does, I’m taking that whole week off, because I don’t want to hear who everybody picked.

Friday night lights are brighter then ever

BY STEVE JANOSKI

As a vicious hater of the winter season, I can't pretend that I'm happy the temperatures are cooling off. Fishing season's over, working out outdoors is more brutal, and baseball season winds down (although being a Red Sox fan, one might call that a blessing this year.)

One of the only good things about the death of summer is that it means that football season begins. It's been my favorite sport since I was a kid, and though its recently been usurped by boxing, it still has a strong place in my heart.

A lifelong Giants fan, I'd wake up early and watch all of the NFL shows on the sports networks when I was young, and curse them all when they picked the Giants to lose during the dark days of the early 90s (as they invariably did).

I read all of the magazines and every article in the papers that even mentioned the team, and knew their roster inside and out along with the strengths and weaknesses of each player.

I put a lot on that team back then, but that changed.

I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I learned the lesson early that you never put too much on something you can't control, like a sports team, and once I began working on Sundays, I rarely got to watch the team with any regularity.

It's also been disheartening in the past two decades to watch the impact that things like free agency have had on football- in an era when players sometimes play for a team for only a year or two before departing, you find yourself rooting more for a uniform color than for a team.

But New York Jets Coach Rex Ryan said something during the last episode of HBO's "Hard Knocks" series that struck me.

The show, which follows the Jets through their preseason training camp, gives an inside look at all of the trials and tribulations of the prima donnas that are so often found littered on the football fields these days, and while it is intensely interesting, it's often disappointing to see some of the attitudes of professional players.

When you've got enough money to fill a swimming pool and an entourage of nobodies telling you how spectacular you are, I guess it's easy to get a little… "self-important."

But when Ryan's son's high school team came to the Jets camp, he began to talk to one of the other coaches about how seeing high school players always "brings him back," and that no matter how far up he goes, he always looks at the young kids and thinks that once, "that was us."

"Look how far we've come…" he said.

As a former high school football player and as a reporter who spends many cool autumn nights on the sidelines of various teams from our local area, I can tell you that Ryan really gets it.

I never went anywhere playing football, but being on those sidelines brings back a slew of memories myself. The bright lights, the electricity in the air before a big game, the coaches walking through the lines as their players stretch, shaking hands and talking to the key guys.

Because the sport is taken very seriously by those that play, it's sometimes easy to forget that for many of them, this will be the last time that they're playing football…just because.

Most will never play again. They're not good enough, or they'll get hurt, or they'll have other responsibilities that will take over their lives.

The ones that do go on to play in college, or to the pros, might accomplish the world…but the world is watching. It's not just "for fun" anymore. It's for contracts, for money, for status, for fame; all of those things that lead men to their downfall.

But for a few years, when they're very young, it's not a whole lot different than playing out in the fields around their elementary schools.

And those years, that's when the football is worth watching- when they've got their hearts and souls in it with nothing to gain except victory, and it's still some time before they'll be ruined by the flashing lights of this greedy world.

So do yourself a favor this weekend, football fans. Turn off the TV, and don't worry about how the pros are doing. Go down to your local high school, and watch those kids beat the hell out of each other on the gridiron.

The pros don't care whether you go to the game or not, whether you watch or not. But the kids will notice that there's more people, and they'll play harder for it, appreciate it.

And to watch that kind of purity in a sport these days… that's something that's worth paying the price of admission for.

New York crashes Jersey’s Giant party

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

BY STEVE JANOSKI 

I’ve heard it on the radio waves, on TV, and seen the excited announcements on Facebook for the past week— our very own Giants Stadium is finally going to get the Super Bowl in 2014.

This is a good thing for both the area and the NFL. It’ll bring business to the state, and it will also be nice to see football being played once again as the real men used to play it—outside in the brutal elements, come snow, sleet, or rain.

With the right weather conditions (or the wrong ones, if you’re playing), we might even have a repeat of the legendary Ice Bowl—the 1967 NFL title game played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the temperature was a balmy negative 13 degrees at game time and the referees couldn’t use their whistles because they froze to their lips on contact.

That’s some manly stuff right there.

Of course, even with all of the excitement over the game, there’s one thing that bothers me—people, it seems, need a geography lesson on where exactly Giants Stadium is.

Say it with me boys, all you announcers and pundits and sportswriters across this great land—it’s in "New Jersey."

I know you want to forget about us except when making your poor jokes about the shore or big hair or any of the other…stuff…that has floated around about us over the years, but now, you’ve got to acknowledge us.

Too long have we taken the back seat to that shining city across the Hudson, and this latest affront on the part of the national media in referring to it as a "New York Super Bowl" is recklessly belligerent toward our state.

This won’t be a "New York Super Bowl" any more than the Knicks are a New Jersey disgrace—we will be dealing with the traffic, we’ll be putting up with the tourists, and most importantly, we’ll be bringing in the cash from it.

And rightfully so.

New York has long claimed the Giants as their own, even though the team played in three different states at various times before finally settling in the Meadowlands in 1976; while East Rutherford is only 7 miles from Times Square, you’ve still got to cross one big state line to get there.

Although I can only talk as a Giants fan, even the New York Jets, by far a more "New York" team, have played at the Meadowlands for 26 years after hustling out of Shea Stadium.

What’s that say about the city and football?

What says even more is that in all of the Giants games I’ve ever been to, I have yet to hear any kind of New York accent or talk to any fancy folks from Manhattan or Queens who made the trek out to the swamps to come see "their" team play.

It’s folks from Wayne or West Caldwell, Bayonne or Belleville, that go the games, pay the exorbitant parking fees, and trade their less-used appendages for the $10 beers.

I’ve accepted that the team that plays in New Jersey in the stadium built for no other purpose than to house them still has that damned "NY" on their helmets—some things just aren’t going to change.

But at least for the next four years, I want it tattooed on these announcers’ foreheads that East Rutherford isn’t New York, and that this game will be among New Jersey’s shining moments whether they like it or not.

So no more "New York Super Bowl."

No more "NY/NJ Super Bowl."

No more "New York Area Super Bowl."

It’s New Jersey. Get it right, especially you New Yorkers.

Otherwise, I might just have to start confusing Manhattan and Long Island…and we all know how much you’ll like that.

"Manhattan? Mastic? It’s all the same to me."

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/pro_sports/95480194_New_York_crashes_Jersey_s_Giant_party.html