Indignation And Outrage!

With the recent domestic abuse problems of four NFL players (Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Grag Hardy and Ray McDonald), Shank joins the vast chorus of self-righteous media harpies, politicians and sundry others in hysterically overreacting to the issue and mounts his Shetland pony high horse to express his feelings about the current state of affairs in the NFL. Throw in a few tangential issues, and we have the classic Shank moral outrage column.

We have outrage. We have heightened awareness. We have thousands of hours of programming, debating who should be allowed to play football this Sunday, and whether Roger Goodell is fit to be commissioner of the National Football League.

Magazine covers and newspaper headlines expose and condemn the criminality of ballplayers while the league itself acknowledges that playing football causes brain damage in nearly a third of the pro players. And social media, of course, never sleeps, providing an endless forum on the awfulness of it all.

Did you know the NFL involves a lot of money? Those greedy bastards! Shank's here to helpfully remind you of that:

On Tuesday, we had mighty Anheuser-Busch (halfway through a six-year, $1.2 billion deal with the NFL) firing a veiled threat at The Shield.
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Meanwhile, the overstuffed NFL owners keep getting richer,
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Until the beer barons and their friends withdraw sponsorship...
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The NFL is a $9 billion industry and Goodell has pledged to his owners that he will make it a $25 billion industry. Think Bob Kraft or Daniel Snyder or Jerry Jones wants to mess with this game plan? Think again.

Nothing like appealing to the base emotions of greed, jealously and resentment to whip up the outrageous outrage, is there?

And what's a Shank NFL column without a shot at Patriots owner Bob Kraft?

Think Kraft is going to take a stand and talk about the sins of the NFL? Think again. According to Forbes, the Patriots are worth $2.6 billion and appreciated by 44 percent since last year — which is the same year in which Aaron Hernandez was arrested for murder, shortly after the Patriots signed him to a $40 million extension.

At least he gets one thing right:

It goes on everywhere. It is a societal problem, not just an NFL problem.

Which is precisely why the self-righteous media harpies and the rest of the lynch mob (like this asshole) might want to take a step back in piling on the NFL like this problem is the sole purview of the NFL and will be resolved by kicking the players out of the league and shitcanning Roger Goodell. I'm not holding my breath on that one...