CNN.com Reporter Confronts RG III over Redskins Name: ‘Racist or Not?’

CNN.com reporter Moni Basu took an opportunity last week to confront and challenge Robert Griffin III, the Washington Redskins quarterback who had tweeted about “the tyranny of political correctness,” with a set of race-related questions.

“Is the R-word is as offensive as the N-Word?,” Basu first tweeted to Griffin.

Read more here.

PC police blast RGIII for ‘tyranny’ tweet

Amid pressure to change the nickname of his team, Washington Redskins star quarterback Robert Griffin III has ignited a digital firestorm from the left by pushing back against the “tyranny of political correctness.”

In a Twitter message, he declared: “In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.”

The controversy arose as Washington, D.C., Council member David Grosso prepared to introduce a non-binding resolution calling on the city’s beloved team to change its “derogatory, racist name.”

Griffin followed his original tweet a short time later with a definition of tyranny, calling it a “condition imposed by some outside agency or force,” such as “living under the tyranny of the clock” or “political correctness.”

Twitter followers erupted:

“Loyalty to local racist named team fading … fading,” wrote Bryan Weaver.
Josh Wheeler said: “Tyranny? Do we share a common reality? Get real. RT.”
@lalndonmccool wrote, “God you make it so easy to hate you”
Said Aaron Nagler: “Oh shut up. RT.”

But Griffin also received considerable support: “As a Seahawks fan, I gained a lot of respect for @RGIII today,” said one in the conversation.

Continuing the provocative Twitter dialogue, Griffin added: “If we speak … we say it the wrong way If we do not speak we are cowards.”

Read more here.

The NFL Has Lost Its Mind

The NFL has proposed a rule change that would prevent ball-carriers from initiating contact with the crown of the helmet. It’s an attempt to make the game safer – but the league’s all-time leading rusher, Emmitt Smith, thinks the NFL should have its own head examined.

“If I’m a running back and I’m running into a linebacker, you’re telling me I have to keep my head up so he can take my chin off?” Smith said Thursday in an exclusive interview with Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “You’ve absolutely lost your mind.”

The NFL’s rules-making competition committee will propose this change to NFL owners at league meetings next week. At least 24 votes from 32 owners are required for passage.

“As a running back, it’s almost impossible (to not lower your head),” the Dallas Cowboys legend said. “The first thing you do is get behind your shoulder pads. That means you’re leaning forward and the first part of contact that’s going to take place is your head, regardless.

“I disagree with the rule altogether. It doesn’t make any sense for that position. It sounds like it’s been made up by people who have never played the game of football.”

It is the league’s view that the crown of the helmet is dangerous for both the defender (who isn’t allowed to use the technique against ball-carriers) and the player with the ball. The competition committee is clearly seeking extra protection for defenders.

“That’s part of the game,” Smith said of “the violent part of the game … I don’t know how you’re going to be able to enforce that rule without really jeopardizing the integrity of the game itself.”

Read more here.

Obama: Football Players Should wear Dresses and Have Tea Parties While Women Fight Our Wars

“I’m a big football fan, but I have to tell you, if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football,” President Barack Obama tells The New Republic.

“And I think that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence,” Obama said. “In some cases, that may make it a little bit less exciting, but it will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won’t have to examine our consciences quite as much.”

“The NFL players have a union, they’re grown men, they can make some of these decisions on their own, and most of them are well-compensated for the violence they do to their bodies,” Obama said. “You read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of these same problems with concussions and so forth and then have nothing to fall back on. That’s something that I’d like to see the NCAA think about.”

Ray Lewis will retire, told teammates ‘this will be my last ride’

Ray Lewis is walking away from the game of football following this season, the linebacker said Wednesday.

Lewis, one of the all-time NFL greats and arguably the best middle linebacker ever, told his teammates “this will be my last ride.”

This means Sunday’s wild-card game against the Colts could be Lewis’ final home game with the Ravens. The Ravens are the AFC’s fourth seed and would need some serious breaks in order to find themselves playing postseason football back at home again.

Lewis doesn’t expect his journey to end Sunday, however.

“Wherever it ends it ends,” Lewis said. “But I didn’t come back to be eliminated in the first round.”

The first-round matchup for the Ravens is suddenly a fascinating one: the Colts are riding an intangible train drawing inspiration from Chuck Pagano, who just so happens to be the former defensive coordinator for Baltimore and knows what Lewis can bring to a game.

“He’ll probably introduce the defense and probably be the last one out and he’ll ignite and incite a riot so to speak,” Pagano said. “And there will be a ton of energy on that football team and on that sideline and in that stadium. He’s their leader and any time you get your leader back it’s an added spark.”

Lewis is as well known for his introduction dance and energy as he is for his play on the field; expect M&T Bank Stadium to be rocking when he comes on the field before the game.

Read more here.

Tebow Hurt By Criticism Of His Character, Insists He Never Asked Out Of Anything

Tim Tebow said that he never asked out of running Wildcat plays last week, but the Jets’ backup quarterback acknowledges that Rex Ryan may have misunderstood him.

Tebow said on Wednesday that he told Ryan last Tuesday that he was “definitely disappointed” he wasn’t going to be the starting quarterback in place of the benched Mark Sanchez, and added that he told the coach he wanted to play “regular quarterback.”

“I never said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do anything,’” Tebow said. “That wasn’t the talk at all. He knows that. And everybody on this team knows that I would never not do something if I was asked. That’s what’s disappointing. People saying,‘Oh, you quit, or you didn’t do this.’ That was not it at all. It was just me asking to get an opportunity to play the position I love, which is quarterback. It wasn’t me asking out of anything.”

Read more here.

ESPN Commentator: RGIII a ‘Cornball Brother’ Due to Possible Republicanism

ESPN’s Rob Parker dropped a bombshell today when he called NFL rookie star and MVP candidate Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III a “cornball brother.” That means, according to Parker, that RGIII isn’t a real black person, and that he might not be “one of us” or “down for the cause.”

What was his justification? RGIII is engaged to a white woman, and could be a Republican.

Seriously.

See the video here.

S.E. CUPP GETS INTO HEATED DEBATE WITH CO-HOST OVER BOB COSTAS’ GUN CONTROL RANT: ‘ABSOLUTELY ABSURD’

During Monday’s edition of “The Cycle” on MSNBC, TheBlaze’s S.E. Cupp blasted NBC Sports’ Bob Costas for lecturing his audience about gun control during Sunday Night Football, calling it a “shameful” and “irresponsible” act. Costas was responding to Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher’s recent murder-suicide.

Cupp sparred with fellow co-host Steve Kornacki over whether guns or individuals are to blame for such tragedies, particularly involving domestic disputes.

“When we’re talking about the weapons, we’re not talking about domestic violence,” Cupp said. “And that does a huge disservice to a woman who is in that situation.”

Cupp said it was irresponsible for Costas to tell “millions of NFL viewers that they have permission to blame guns instead of the person who pulled the trigger.” She went on to say that giving an “inanimate object” human capabilities is “absolutely absurd.”

Costas, reading from sports columnist Jason Whitlock’s column, said:

“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.”
“Bob Costas has, I think, done something shameful and irresponsible and is going to have some blood on his hands if we continue to talk about the wrong problem, what is not the problem: handguns,” Cupp said.

Kornacki jumped in and immediately attempted to discredit Cupp’s argument.

“I wish you’d grapple with some of the statistics that are out there, S.E., before you say something like that,” Kornacki replied.

Read more here.

NBC’s Bob Costas Blames NFL Murder-Suicide on Guns

NewsBusters reported Saturday the tragic murder-suicide involving a Kansas City Chiefs’ football player and his girlfried.

During halftime of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, Bob Costas chose to lecture America about how guns were to blame for the incident.

BOB COSTAS: Well, you knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, [unintelligible] sports clichés was heard yet again: something like this really puts it all in perspective. Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf-life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games.

Please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. You want some actual perspective on this?

Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree, but who today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.

“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.”

“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football, will be analyzed. Who knows?”

Read more here.

Chiefs linebacker Belcher struggled with head injuries, alcohol and painkillers before he snapped and killed girlfriend

Kansas City Chiefs linebacker and former Long Island high-school star Jovan Belcher was allegedly battling football-related head injuries and booze, painkiller and domestic problems when he snapped and murdered his girlfriend before killing himself in front of two coaches Saturday.

A pal of Belcher’s told the Web site Deadspin.com that Kasandra Perkins, the mother of Belcher’s 3-month-old daughter, had threatened to leave him for good amid fighting between the pair.

The couple had only recently reconciled after Perkins left their rented house in Kansas City with the baby at one point to stay with friends. Perkins had returned, but friends said the relationship was still volatile.

Read more here.