SI.com's Peter King writes letter of caution to NFL players

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In wake of the chaos that ensued in the Steelers-Bengals Wild Card game, SI.com's Peter King issued a memo to the NFL's players.

King, who has been covering the NFL since 1980, wrote the following letter to the NFL's players, advising them to take care of a game that's at a pivotal crossroads:


Dear Players,

On Saturday night, the NFL scheduled a major television event for the marquee game of the first playoff weekend. A rivalry game, with intense feelings between players and cities, featuring one of the great franchises in American sports, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers at the division-champion Bengals was the most anticipated game of the weekend, and the CBS audience proved it. At the height of the telecast, between 10 and 11 p.m., some 27.5 million people were tuned into the game. The combined TV audience for the other major-network programming at that time was 6.98 million viewers.
So, as this game reached its climax, four out of every five major-network viewers were watching the NFL game. It was exactly the magnet the NFL had in mind when they booked this game for prime time.
This is what America—families watching together, fathers, mothers and children, teens, college kids, everyone else along the football spectrum, all important consumers of your game—saw in the last 17 minutes of this game:

• Pittsburgh linebacker Ryan Shazier ramming Cincinnati running back Gio Bernard with the crown of his helmet, something that year after year, practice after practice, players have been trained and warned not to do. For minutes, Bernard lay motionless on the ground.

• Cincinnati running back Jeremy Hill running on the field and trying to fight or somehow challenge four different Steelers while Bernard lay injured.

• Cincinnati linebacker Vontaze Burfict sacking Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Later, one angle showed Burfict trying to drive a knee into the injured shoulder of Roethlisberger.

• Burfict, leading with his shoulder, ramming defenseless Steelers receiver Antonio Brown in the helmet after an exposed Brown reached for a pass, causing Brown’s body to go limp and his head to jerk uncontrollably, the way an unconscious person’s body would react.

• Steelers linebacker coach Joey Porter in the middle of the field where he shouldn’t have been (assistant coaches are not allowed on the field during the game) jawing with assorted Bengals until Cincinnati’s Adam Jones burst past an official to challenge Porter. This contact with an official caused Jones to be flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, moving Pittsburgh in position for the winning field goal. Porter smiled. One Steeler jumped with glee at the flag. Soon, the Steelers kicked the winner and won 18-16.


This is what the Steelers and Bengals showed 27 million Americans about the great game of professional football. Your game. The game your coaches—from youth ball up to the NFL—have taught you to play fairly.


This was the lesson from the climax of this playoff game: Stop at nothing to win, even if it means concussing the opposition. Taunt your foes. Hit them with the crown of your helmet. Sneak onto the field to induce them into a penalty.

Anything to win the game.

Demean yourselves. Shame your former coaches and your parents. Show them if you win the game, it’s all good. All’s fair in love and football.

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a tornado on the outside of your profession. Parents who grew up loving the game are agonizing about whether they’ll let their children play football. A movie, “Concussion,” is out, and Will Smith plays a doctor warning America about the long-term, inescapable dangers of the sport. Have you seen it? You should. I’ve seen it twice, and I’d go again. You should know what your football ancestors put up with to play the game, and what many of you face if you continue to play.
You know what I was thinking when I watched the disgusting hit of Burfict on Brown? I have no idea what the short-term impact of that hit will be, but I know there’s a good chance the effects will be seen on Brown’s brain when he’s 50 or 60 or 70. Or 40. I wondered why, after the ugly and filthy Odell Beckham Jr. hit on Josh Norman a few weeks ago, when Beckham took a running start and battering-rammed his head into Norman’s head, this keep happening.
It shouldn’t, but it does. It’s shameful, but it continues. It could someday kill the game, but your peers, few though they may be, keep playing this way.

I am writing to issue this plea: Take care of yourselves. Take care of your game.
Late in the season, late in the vital Bengals-Broncos game, Cincinnati’s Reggie Nelson bore down on Denver tight end Owen Daniels as Daniels tried to secure a pass. Nelson could have hit Daniels in the head or knees, but in a split second, he took care to hit Daniels in the upper torso. A very hard hit, but the right hit. I talked to Nelson. One of the things he said to me: “We have to take care of ourselves. We’re one big family out there on the field.”
Too many times you don’t look like a family. You look like you want to physically harm the men on the other side of the line. That has to end. Forget about today. Think of all the people who look at games like Steelers-Bengals and say it’s a big reason why football is a dinosaur, and our kids should be playing sports with very little contact. More games like this, and Congress will get involved. And I would be happy if Washington does, because games like that one show you’re not capable of looking out for the common good.
I hope you were glad to see the NFL on Monday night suspend Burfict for the first three games of next season. The hit on Brown was part of it. If you didn’t see the bigger reason, you missed Burfict’s incredibly brutal hit on Baltimore rookie Maxx Williams. On the other side of the field, away from the play, Williams went out for a pass and was looking back at the quarterback when Burfict blew up the unsuspecting Williams with a helmet-to-helmet hit that left the Raven prone on the ground.
I urge you to just say no to plays like that, to 17-minute periods of game like Saturday night’s. Take control of your game again.
If you have a chance Friday night, watch a re-airing of the lost tapes of Super Bowl I. A very cool TV show, showing the first Super Bowl, played 49 years ago this month. In the show, you’ll hear legendary coach Vince Lombardi exhort his team to show the country just what a great game football is. “I want you to be proud of your profession,” Lombardi said. “It’s a great profession. You be proud of this game. You can do a great deal for football today, a great deal for all the players in this league and everyone else.”
You can do a great deal for this game too. To start: Keep the game clean. Insist on playing with honor. That won’t matter with Super Bowl 50. It will matter with Super Bowl 100, though. If football’s still being played.


Sincerely,
Peter King

He says a lot of good things, but commenting on that moronic video of Vontaze and Ben leads me to continue to think of him as a moron.

(01-14-2016, 10:17 AM)michaelsean Wrote: He says a lot of good things, but commenting on that moronic video of Vontaze and Ben leads me to continue to think of him as a moron.

I don't think that video is moronic.  Viewing it from a wide angle rather than the closeup that has been circulating certainly puts it in mor of a gray area, but given Butfict's history, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and think that he did knee him on purpose.  I don't think anyone other than Bengal homers would rule out that possibility 100%.  

(01-14-2016, 11:33 AM)JS-Steelerfan Wrote: I don't think that video is moronic.  Viewing it from a wide angle rather than the closeup that has been circulating certainly puts it in mor of a gray area, but given Butfict's history, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and think that he did knee him on purpose.  I don't think anyone other than Bengal homers would rule out that possibility 100%.  

Viewing it from a wide angle rather than the closeup that has been circulating certainly puts it in more of a gray area, but given the Steeler's history, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and think that they do those things on purpose.  I don't think anyone other than Steelers homers would rule out that possibility 100%.

(01-14-2016, 11:37 AM)Interceptor Wrote: Viewing it from a wide angle rather than the closeup that has been circulating certainly puts it in more of a gray area, but given the Steeler's history, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and think that they do those things on purpose.  I don't think anyone other than Steelers homers would rule out that possibility 100%.

Viewing what you simpleton?  If you're going to parrot someone it should at least make sense.

(01-14-2016, 11:33 AM)JS-Steelerfan Wrote: I don't think that video is moronic.  Viewing it from a wide angle rather than the closeup that has been circulating certainly puts it in mor of a gray area, but given Butfict's history, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and think that he did knee him on purpose.  I don't think anyone other than Bengal homers would rule out that possibility 100%.  

Look at it in real time.  About half a second elapses.  It's slowed down and looped.  

(01-14-2016, 11:44 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Look at it in real time.  About half a second elapses.  It's slowed down and looped.  

Right, but the final time his knee comes down, I don't think it's easy to tell whether he put a little more oomph into it or not.  

Unlike most Bengal fans commenting on this, I'm not saying that the video provides indisputable proof of one side or the other.  I'm just saying that I wouldn't rule it out.  

(01-14-2016, 11:37 AM)Interceptor Wrote: Viewing it from a wide angle rather than the closeup that has been circulating certainly puts it in more of a gray area, but given the Steeler's history, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and think that they do those things on purpose.  I don't think anyone other than Steelers homers would rule out that possibility 100%.

Do what on purpose? Lie there prone after just having been sacked? Are you talking about a different video or did you just not think this through?

Try again, and this time, make some sense.

(01-14-2016, 11:54 AM)JS-Steelerfan Wrote: Right, but the final time his knee comes down, I don't think it's easy to tell whether he put a little more oomph into it or not.  

Unlike most Bengal fans commenting on this, I'm not saying that the video provides indisputable proof of one side or the other.  I'm just saying that I wouldn't rule it out.  

I wouldn't rule out that he would do something like this, I'm just saying in this instance it didn't happen.  He gets up immediately.

Congress can't get involved. They're way too busy running the country into the ground and feathering their own nests to get involved with football.

So, now, it seems, Peter King is not just a moron, he's also a socialist. Why am I not surprised?

A couple things he conveniently forgot to mention-

Shazier dancing for joy over knocking Gio out.

The video of the sack was doctored and later removed, yet he quotes it like it's fact.

David DeCastro was a thug from start to finish.

Mike Tomlin has his own history,

Jerry Porter, human garbage for years, who no one in the league but the Steelers would employ, was just following the game plan.

(01-14-2016, 12:18 PM)McC Wrote: A couple things he conveniently forgot to mention-

Shazier dancing for joy over knocking Gio out.

The video of the sack was doctored and later removed, yet he quotes it like it's fact.

David DeCastro was a thug from start to finish.

Mike Tomlin has his own history,

Jerry Porter, human garbage for years, who no one in the league but the Steelers would employ, was just following the game plan.

Now the jungle noobs are in here.  When will it end?!?!

(01-14-2016, 05:26 AM)Vambo Wrote: SI.com's Peter King writes letter of caution to NFL players

Link

In wake of the chaos that ensued in the Steelers-Bengals Wild Card game, SI.com's Peter King issued a memo to the NFL's players.

King, who has been covering the NFL since 1980, wrote the following letter to the NFL's players, advising them to take care of a game that's at a pivotal crossroads:


Dear Players,

On Saturday night, the NFL scheduled a major television event for the marquee game of the first playoff weekend. A rivalry game, with intense feelings between players and cities, featuring one of the great franchises in American sports, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers at the division-champion Bengals was the most anticipated game of the weekend, and the CBS audience proved it. At the height of the telecast, between 10 and 11 p.m., some 27.5 million people were tuned into the game. The combined TV audience for the other major-network programming at that time was 6.98 million viewers.
So, as this game reached its climax, four out of every five major-network viewers were watching the NFL game. It was exactly the magnet the NFL had in mind when they booked this game for prime time.
This is what America—families watching together, fathers, mothers and children, teens, college kids, everyone else along the football spectrum, all important consumers of your game—saw in the last 17 minutes of this game:

• Pittsburgh linebacker Ryan Shazier ramming Cincinnati running back Gio Bernard with the crown of his helmet, something that year after year, practice after practice, players have been trained and warned not to do. For minutes, Bernard lay motionless on the ground.

• Cincinnati running back Jeremy Hill running on the field and trying to fight or somehow challenge four different Steelers while Bernard lay injured.

• Cincinnati linebacker Vontaze Burfict sacking Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Later, one angle showed Burfict trying to drive a knee into the injured shoulder of Roethlisberger.

• Burfict, leading with his shoulder, ramming defenseless Steelers receiver Antonio Brown in the helmet after an exposed Brown reached for a pass, causing Brown’s body to go limp and his head to jerk uncontrollably, the way an unconscious person’s body would react.

• Steelers linebacker coach Joey Porter in the middle of the field where he shouldn’t have been (assistant coaches are not allowed on the field during the game) jawing with assorted Bengals until Cincinnati’s Adam Jones burst past an official to challenge Porter. This contact with an official caused Jones to be flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, moving Pittsburgh in position for the winning field goal. Porter smiled. One Steeler jumped with glee at the flag. Soon, the Steelers kicked the winner and won 18-16.


This is what the Steelers and Bengals showed 27 million Americans about the great game of professional football. Your game. The game your coaches—from youth ball up to the NFL—have taught you to play fairly.


This was the lesson from the climax of this playoff game: Stop at nothing to win, even if it means concussing the opposition. Taunt your foes. Hit them with the crown of your helmet. Sneak onto the field to induce them into a penalty.

Anything to win the game.

Demean yourselves. Shame your former coaches and your parents. Show them if you win the game, it’s all good. All’s fair in love and football.

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a tornado on the outside of your profession. Parents who grew up loving the game are agonizing about whether they’ll let their children play football. A movie, “Concussion,” is out, and Will Smith plays a doctor warning America about the long-term, inescapable dangers of the sport. Have you seen it? You should. I’ve seen it twice, and I’d go again. You should know what your football ancestors put up with to play the game, and what many of you face if you continue to play.
You know what I was thinking when I watched the disgusting hit of Burfict on Brown? I have no idea what the short-term impact of that hit will be, but I know there’s a good chance the effects will be seen on Brown’s brain when he’s 50 or 60 or 70. Or 40. I wondered why, after the ugly and filthy Odell Beckham Jr. hit on Josh Norman a few weeks ago, when Beckham took a running start and battering-rammed his head into Norman’s head, this keep happening.
It shouldn’t, but it does. It’s shameful, but it continues. It could someday kill the game, but your peers, few though they may be, keep playing this way.

I am writing to issue this plea: Take care of yourselves. Take care of your game.
Late in the season, late in the vital Bengals-Broncos game, Cincinnati’s Reggie Nelson bore down on Denver tight end Owen Daniels as Daniels tried to secure a pass. Nelson could have hit Daniels in the head or knees, but in a split second, he took care to hit Daniels in the upper torso. A very hard hit, but the right hit. I talked to Nelson. One of the things he said to me: “We have to take care of ourselves. We’re one big family out there on the field.”
Too many times you don’t look like a family. You look like you want to physically harm the men on the other side of the line. That has to end. Forget about today. Think of all the people who look at games like Steelers-Bengals and say it’s a big reason why football is a dinosaur, and our kids should be playing sports with very little contact. More games like this, and Congress will get involved. And I would be happy if Washington does, because games like that one show you’re not capable of looking out for the common good.
I hope you were glad to see the NFL on Monday night suspend Burfict for the first three games of next season. The hit on Brown was part of it. If you didn’t see the bigger reason, you missed Burfict’s incredibly brutal hit on Baltimore rookie Maxx Williams. On the other side of the field, away from the play, Williams went out for a pass and was looking back at the quarterback when Burfict blew up the unsuspecting Williams with a helmet-to-helmet hit that left the Raven prone on the ground.
I urge you to just say no to plays like that, to 17-minute periods of game like Saturday night’s. Take control of your game again.
If you have a chance Friday night, watch a re-airing of the lost tapes of Super Bowl I. A very cool TV show, showing the first Super Bowl, played 49 years ago this month. In the show, you’ll hear legendary coach Vince Lombardi exhort his team to show the country just what a great game football is. “I want you to be proud of your profession,” Lombardi said. “It’s a great profession. You be proud of this game. You can do a great deal for football today, a great deal for all the players in this league and everyone else.”
You can do a great deal for this game too. To start: Keep the game clean. Insist on playing with honor. That won’t matter with Super Bowl 50. It will matter with Super Bowl 100, though. If football’s still being played.


Sincerely,
Peter King

King is a tool and NFL paid talking head, he probably serviced Goodell after he wrote the article. The NFL is a bunch of hypocrites and could care less about player safety, if they cared Shazier would have been tossed out of the game. Would Burfict been given a pass and no flag on that hit, no way and everyone knows it. Hell, Williams got flagged and he di d nothing wrong proving it was the intent of the refs to make sure the Steelers got all 50/50 calls, it was obvious.

(01-14-2016, 12:46 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: King is a tool and NFL paid talking head, he probably serviced Goodell after he wrote the article. The NFL is a bunch of hypocrites and could care less about player safety, if they cared Shazier would have been tossed out of the game. Would Burfict been given a pass and no flag on that hit, no way and everyone knows it. Hell, Williams got flagged and he di d nothing wrong proving it was the intent of the refs to make sure the Steelers got all 50/50 calls, it was obvious.

I think the NFL hates your city.  The Bengals should move.  

(01-14-2016, 12:48 PM)SteelCitySouth Wrote: I think the NFL hates your city.  The Bengals should move.  

No, the NFL hates any city they feel will not provide them the biggest TV audience the following week. Follow the money, it always plays out (corruption), but no one has the balls to admit it or investigate it.

(01-14-2016, 12:36 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Now the jungle noobs are in here.  When will it end?!?!

My guess is when penalties are made reviewable or removed entirely from the game so that human mistakes and bias is removed entirely.

(01-14-2016, 12:48 PM)SteelCitySouth Wrote: I think the NFL hates your city.  The Bengals should move.  

Would save me a lot of headaches.

(01-14-2016, 12:52 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: No, the NFL hates any city they feel will not provide them the biggest TV audience the following week. Follow the money, it always plays out (corruption), but no one has the balls to admit it or investigate it.

Amazon has a new shipment of tinfoil hats available....Don't be the last to get yours.

(01-14-2016, 12:56 PM)SteelCitySouth Wrote: Amazon has a new shipment of tinfoil hats available....Don't be the last to get yours.

And Walmart has panties on sale, please buy for yourself and your buddies in this forum who keep crying:
 "Burfict is too tough, he tackles our guys too hard...............whine, whine, whine...rinse and repeat

(01-14-2016, 01:00 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: And Walmart has panties on sale, please buy for yourself and your buddies in this forum who keep crying:
 "Burfict is too tough, he tackles our guys too hard...............whine, whine, whine...rinse and repeat

LOL...Please point to one of my posts that could even remotely be construed as crying.  Meanwhile the faucet on your Sheela tear ducts has been stuck on full force.  The vast amount of tears flowing form your face as become a real emvironmental issue.  Go eat a McRib and get over it Amanda.