Good Tuesday to you Steelers’ fans.
The National Football League clearly wants to make sure it plays in 2020. The owners have agreed to the players’ demands that there be no preseason games. I’ll get back to that in a second, because they also agreed to daily testing Covid-19 testing for players and team personnel as well for the first two weeks of Training Camp. This, not surprisingly, has not gone over well with many in the general public because of the delay in testing for us. I’m not going to go down that road because there are millions of opinions on that… The presence of this pandemic has also created the need for adjustments as to how the NFL will deal with the Injured Reserve list. Profootballtalk.com lays it out pretty well here for you but needless to say it’s going to create a lot of changes. For this writing though the bigger issue is ZERO preseason games. Most fans hate preseason games (I’m in the minority here) but they really do have a number of important purposes. While veterans stand on the sideline in shorts and tees chomping on sunflower seeds, drafted rookies, undrafted rookies and veteran players are out there busting their ass trying to make the roster. With those opportunities gone, the longer Training Camp which is the ‘counter’ by the owners in lieu of no preseason games, has to be the proving ground and we all know that just isn’t the same. What does this mean? It means that those first couple of weeks in the regular season are probably going to be sloppy but I can tell you this; I’ll take sloppy football over no football any day.
Tweet of the Day… An experiment comes to an end.
We have waived TE Christian Scotland-Williamson.
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) July 20, 2020
Thoughts on Scotland-Williamson
CSW was a highly respected rugby player in the U.K. who had the size and athleticism to get a shot at playing in the NFL. For two plus seasons he practiced with the Steelers in hopes of making the active roster. This should be a tale for all of us to recognize. No matter how big, physical or athletic a player is, it still takes more than that to play football in the NFL. Think about it, CSW couldn’t even make it as a third-string tight end. That should tell you just how difficult being an NFL player is.
Native American Mascots
As we see pro sports organizations, universities and high schools across the country rush to get rid of their Native American mascots or imagery, here’s an example of how you do it right. I talk to my sociology students every semester about this issue and I often use Florida State as an example. That school has worked closely with the Seminole Nation to make sure the tribe is positively represented by the university. My point is that you can have mascots like this if you involve everyone and in a positive manner.
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Have a great day Steeler Nation!
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