Tag: NFL

The NFL and Uber

The N.F.L. players association hopes to address [the recent rash in player drunk driving] in a new partnership it has formed with the technology firm Uber, which makes a smartphone app that acts as a digital dispatcher for people looking for a taxi or a car service.

[…]

Because Uber relies on G.P.S., players will not need to know the precise address of their location to get a ride home.

Further proof that there’s drunk, and then there’s drunk.

Players will be offered $200 in credits as an inducement to use the service, which begins next week.

Let’s all take a moment to recall that most active players in the NFL are a millionaire or should be in short order; I believe the lowest possible salary for a non-practice squad rookie player is currently ~$405,000 a year. This rises to over $800k/yr once you have put in any kind of service in the league beyond one season. Let’s face it: most, if not all of them could easily afford to employ a full-time driver. When you’ve already got a ready-made entourage of hangers-on, as seemingly all NFL players do, why not just pay one of them not to drink and do all the driving? Hell, pay two and they can take turns with the not-drinking. Who could refuse $60k/yr with benefits to haul Tim Tebow around between bars and shady “motels”? ‘Merica needs jobs, after all.

The NFL and Uber

I actually had [the number 33 jersey in my hands] for about 10 seconds and then I was thinking, ‘Nah, I’m an old-school football fan and I loved Tony Dorsett.’ I’ve met him a couple of times and his son. I just feel like that’s hallowed ground, so I just got right back in 23.

Sammy Morris, newly minted Dallas Cowboy running back, who has worn the hallowed number 33 in the past. He’ll do well in Dallas, even if it is for a swan song of a season or two.
Source: ESPN

They Are Peons

Bill Simmons writes a little fable:

I am addicted to making money. I have lost any and all perspective. I don’t care if I lose my readers in the short term; they will come back. I don’t care if I lose my staff; I can always find new people. I don’t care about the health of my employees; as far as I’m concerned, they knew the risks. I don’t care if my website is gravitating toward quantity over quality, or that we chase page views with shorter, Google-friendly stories instead of posting the same top-notch content that got people reading us in the first place; I want only to generate more revenue than the previous year.

Technically speaking, it’s all about the NFL ownership and their ongoing labor talks; whatever it’s specifically about it is definitely required reading.

They Are Peons

So long, Dandy Don Meredith:

Mr. Meredith showed up for the 1966 [NFL] title game with his face covered in stitches. He told everyone he’d been shopping with his wife, tripped, and went through a plate-glass window. He couldn’t play.

“You could’ve heard a pin drop,’’ [Dan] Reeves said. “Then coach Landry walked in and he peeled it off. It looked so real! He had a makeup artist put it on. We all wanted to choke him to death"

and

“I remember asking him once, ‘Why do they call you Dandy?’ ” [Steve] Sabol said. “And he just said, ‘Because I am.’ ”