WRONG. (Have we used that title before?)

There is out of touch, then there's really out of touch, then there's plain batshit lunatic your-opinion-is-so-wrong-I-can't-quite-express-it out of touch. Look, I am as annoyed at the NFL as anyone, and I like soccer a lot, but.... no. No, no, no, and again, no. Shut your mouth, guy.

I'm not trying to take anything from American football. It was a great game once,

It's by far the most popular game in the US right now, regardless of subjective notions of great gameness or no longer great gameness.

before rule changes and technology turned it into an excuse to destroy amazing athletes for money.

Pretty much every rule change instituted in the last five years is aimed at reducing players' chances of getting hurt. As for technology- yeah, those damn helmets are the worst at keeping players safe, aren't they?

And still, I enjoy watching the Chicago Bears But it's a guilty pleasure, like watching prizefighting.

YEEEEEEEAH. Fire up the hyperbole machine.

And only the willfully evil

This means you, Roger Goodell. You dickhole.

or the willfully stupid

Roethlisberger?

can afford to pretend that premeditated violence to the skull doesn't come with a cost.

It does. Concussion safety and long term brain damage are obviously massive issues (as they should be). I don't think anyone is "pretending" they aren't. Unless you think enjoying the game in spite of those dangers counts as "pretending," in which case you are an idiot.

So if the NFL goes on strike,

It's not on strike, it's an ownership lockout, and it's been happening for four months now.

it might bother some of us,

It will absolutely bother the shit out the vast majority of American sports fans.

but it wouldn't be all that bad.

To many, it would be the end of life as we know it.

We'd have more time to spend with our families.

God, gag me with a fucking pogo stick. This is so tragically Reilly-esque. HEY EVERYONE, YOU KNOW, SPORTS AREN'T REALLY ALL THAT IMPORTANT. Let's try to keep that in mind and live our lives a little bit better and fuller and- OH LOOK, A CHANCE TO GRANDSTAND ABOUT A SPORT THAT I LIKE THAT ISN'T MAINSTREAM!

We'd have more time to enjoy soccer.

Grandstanding complete. Just substitute "golf" for "soccer" and you've got yourself one of Rick's masterpieces.

And Fox and ESPN, which have increased their soccer broadcasting, will be ready.

And the millions of Americans who hate soccer and live and breath for the NFL will not be watching.

It seems that the beautiful game is ascendant everywhere in America except perhaps in the minds of some American sports journalists.

If "ascendant" in this context means "getting more popular," sure. If it means "on the verge of becoming as popular as the NFL," trrrrrrry again. Look, again, I like soccer. I wish it was more popular. But you can't just be righteously indignant about the dangers of football, talk about how soccer is more popular than it was ten years ago, and think you've made a cogent argument that no one should or will care if the NFL misses time this fall because everyone's ready to embrace soccer.

Can't We Just Work Out A Compromise Where Roger Goodell and the Lawyers Kill Themselves?

Never mind that this piece of shit letter by known piece of shit Roger Goodell reads like one of those shitty Rick Reilly columns where he imagines how terrible baseball would be in some dystopian world where all the players were forced to take steroids and the pitchers were cyborgs or something. Never mind that. Just get a load of this:

For many years, the collectively bargained system—which has given the players union enhanced free agency and capped the amount that owners spend on salaries—has worked enormously well for the NFL, for NFL players, and for NFL fans.

For players, the system allowed player compensation to skyrocket—pay and benefits doubled in the last 10 years alone. The system also offered players comparable economic opportunities throughout the league, from Green Bay and New Orleans to San Francisco and New York. In addition, it fostered conditions that allowed the NFL to expand by four teams, extending careers and creating jobs for hundreds of additional players.

For clubs and fans, the trade-off afforded each team a genuine opportunity to compete for the Super Bowl, greater cost certainty, and incentives to invest in the game. Those incentives translated into two dozen new and renovated stadiums and technological innovations such as the NFL Network and nfl.com.

I almost feel like I'd be insulting your intelligence to explain why the above quote is so intellectually dishonest. After all, anyone following the NFL lockout even casually should be able to see immediately where Goodell is trying to treat us like we're idiots.

However, the risk of not making it clear why Goodell is a living breathing piece of shit is a risk I'm not willing to take.

You see how, above, Goodell outlines everything that is great about the previous CBA? How it is good, not only for the players, but also the league and the fans? Well, Goodell, on behalf of the owners, locked the players out SO HE COULD TEAR UP THAT CBA. The players are not the ones who want to change the CBA. The owners do. The owners want to change the CBA, because that agreement--the one that led to them earning $9 billion in revenues last year--is an agreement that is not financially sustainable for the owners in the NFL.

Holy shit is Roger Goodell--both individually and in his station as spokesperson for the piece of shit owners--a piece of shit

EDIT: Larry wanted me to point out another hypocrisy of this quote that was kind of beyond the purview of my post, but bears mentioning anyway. The thing about owners building stadiums...well they kind of "built" the stadiums the same way as if when you graduate high school your folks take you to the used car lot and let you pick out the one you like, then that means "you bought a car". There are more mendacities and douchebaggeries at the micro level in this letter by Goodell--including the idea that the NFLPA would ever request that there not be an amateur draft (quite the opposite, and you damn well know it, Roger). But that's beyond my scope right now. I'd love to see LB take a crack at it though.