Players at odds over NFL's $100M charity plan

What the NFL and the Players Association failed to realize is a lesson that baseball learned in '94. Fans turn a blind eye, but there is always that one issue that pisses them off. The NFL found that hot button. The end result is the opposite of what they were hoping for....

SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SrA Christopher Wright SFC Stephen King MSgt John McGowan SGT Gregory Lawritson Cpl (Join to see) Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth LTC (Join to see) MSG Frederick Otero Sgt Steven Thomas SGT Mark Halmrast LCDR (Join to see) SFC Dave Beran SCPO Morris Ramsey SPC Margaret Higgins SGT Jim Arnold SFC William H. PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SSG James BehnkePFC (Join to see)

LT Brad McInnis After the Vikings Lions game on Thanksgiving, I would suggest that the NFL ratings issue is more related to the horrible product than anything else. The kneeling fiasco certainly doesn't help, but when your referees are more three stooges than professional look in house instead of outside for the problem.

Too little too late. The concerns about police interaction with ethnic and racial majorities legitimately needs to be addressed. There are small fractions on both sides of the issue that need to engage in some soul-searching. But this was the wrong gesture in the wrong format. Three seconds into launch it was apparent that the method of protest eclipsed the object of protest. Someone needed to press the self-destruct button EARLY, and did not. Attempts to re-engineer the protest should have happened the instant that this got any press attention. A statement and a defined, well-thought out course of action two weeks into this would have been good leadership. Now, its a bandage on a sucking head wound.