A Chiefs Fan’s Twelfth Hour
By author
We are all Chiefs fans here. We love them. Recently, however, I have been very disgusted with football. As hard as this is to say, I have to really make myself go onto AA some days because thinking about all of this just really makes me angry. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about this situation and how to come to a resolution. I am reminded, not of anything related to football, but of a graphic novel I read called “The Watchmen.” I am not talking about the movie, which although by itself was pretty cool with great CGI and such, but really didn’t live up to the book. What movies ever really do live up to the book though?
If you’ve never read “The Watchmen” and are planning to, you may not want to go past the jump.
The main idea in “The Watchmen” (which is set in an alternate universe where we won the Vietnam War and Nixon is still president) is that the clock keeps ticking closer and closer to nuclear war with the USSR. The villain of the book realizes that there is no resolving the conflict between the USA and the Soviet Union, and devises a plan to bring in an external threat that will unify the two sides with a common enemy. Although this threat is not actually real, the basis of the idea is sound. Who’s going to worry about fighting with another country when New York just got blown up by an alien?
Thus we come back to Nick Rodgers as a diehard and pissed off Chiefs fan. I see the owners and players reaching the twelfth hour on the NFL’s nuclear clock and I wonder how these sides can be brought together. It is quite obvious that both sides are so stuck on winning that neither really wants to admit defeat, and so I, with the wonderfulness of the internet, have created the external threat that can unify them.
I created an online petition to boycott the NFL for 12 months in the event of lost games.
You can Sign it by clicking on this link
We all have complained that neither side has taken into account the fans in any of their talks except for a couple of patronizing remarks by officials and owners here and there. If the fans go on strike, what the hell are they going to do then? No one makes money, no one goes to the games, and I think that would make them come to an agreement rather quickly. If anything it’s a way to make yourself feel just a little more vindicated about the whole situation.
Silly? Probably. Ineffective? Most definitely. I do not care though. I will still come here every week and write about the team I love even if I am boycotting. I think it’s only fair that customers reserve the right to tell a business that they don’t like their practices. I think it’s fair that when a company decides to do things without considering the best interests of their customers that there should be a negative financial impact. It happens where I work. If we piss customers off, they don’t come back. They are simply business lost, and I’m not even saying that they’d lose us forever, just a year. That’s just long enough for them to see the stadium debt mount a little more, and their P&L dip. Just long enough for them to freak out about their payroll and negative comps. Just long enough for them to realize that we are not just fans, but customers and we can discontinue our business with them at any time. We need to be that external threat that unifies them and gets things going. Otherwise we just sound like desperate children that whine when mommy won’t let us watch TV.
The petition has a target date for the beginning of August. I know that with the injunction and antitrust lawsuit that there may be no agreement, but still a football season. I am aware of what has been reported; fortunately I do not live under a rock. This for me is simply a means of adding a little pressure using the glorious Bill of Rights to inform these pompous greedy narcissistic assholes that really in the end they work for us. If we don’t pay attention to them anymore, they end up working in the real world like we do. I love the Chiefs and have been a fan my whole life, but there comes a time when action is needed to preserve the things you love, or let them figure out what life is like without you for a while.
So, sound off Addicts. Will you take the plunge and sign my petition? I remember signing one for the release of Larry Johnson so he would not get Priest Holmes’ rushing record and that seemed to work. If not, please tell me how far off base I am here. I expect a lot of “you’re effing crazy for saying you’ll give up football for a year!” comments. To those of you thinking of this reply, please read back through my analogy with “The Watchmen” before writing anything too harsh. If you still don’t get it, then blast away!
Also, if you agree with this petition, just so you know, I do not social network. So feel free to attach this to your facebook page, tweet about it, or just email the link to your friends.