NFL THURSDAY-NIGHT THUGFEST ONCE AGAIN

   The once-great National Football League descended again tonight into gutter-level savagery. Two rival gangs from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, operating under the guise of professional football teams ended tonight's rumble game in an utterly disgraceful act---even by the NFL's near nonexistent level of standards. 

  Here it goes. The smart boys at Sport Illustrated claimed with "a brief tussle" between Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph and Cleveland defender Myles Garrett. Here we see the little misunderstanding with Rudolph grabbing Garrett by the throat:

  Garrett retaliated with the very sportsmanlike act of tearing off Rudolph's helmet:

  And bashing him over the head with it:

The thugs then rumbled onto the End Zone, led by Steelers' center Maurkice Pouncey:

When another coward named Larry Ogunjobi rushed in and hit the helmet-less Rudolph in the back:

 And with the Steelers bravely piling on Garrett and beating him while on the ground, Pouncey delivers a kick to the downed man:

  Does anybody see anything admirable about this? Me neither. Troy Aikman---who was once a real football player and now a sportscaster, called it "barbaric". 

  Just for the record here but all four of the main bad actors in this incident are millionaires and college graduates; and treated as national celebrities. Rudolph is a graduate from Oklahoma State University; Pouncey is a graduate from the University of Florida; Garrett is a graduate of Texas A & M University; and Ogunjubi is a graduate of the University of Charlottesville (UNC). Fine stuff these institutions of higher learning are turning loose on the public---and while taxpayers pick up the tab for it besides. 

  And NFL Management is threatening ominously to take action:

 I'm certain that the thugs are all very frightened over this. The longest suspension that the NFL has given in the last 20 years for on-field incidents like these has been a whopping five games. And all of this comes on a day when another of these greats of the gridiron found himself involved in the very suspicious death of a young woman; while everybody's favorite, Colin Kaepernick, is trying out for the NFL again.

  And we wonder why so many young men are turning to cowardly acts of violence like that school-shooter in Santa Clarita did this morning. The thugs who are presented to young men as role-models with their "win-at-all-costs" mentality lead many boys and young men to believe that there are no real consequences for being bullies, cheats, and general scumbags. Instead, there are great rewards for this behavior in Trash Culture. But in the Real World, where real things matter, it's a dead end.

  As far as I'm concerned, the NFL can reach a dead end, the sooner the better.