So how much do you think National Football League honchos are paying Deion Sanders to be their slave?
Sanders is an analyst for the NFL Network. I don’t know how much he makes in that job, but he may be the highest paid slave in history. The former All Pro defensive back also writes a weekly column for the News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida. On July 22, Prime Time had quite a bit to say about the Michael Vick case in his newspaper column.
“This is all the result of perspective,” Sanders wrote about the federal charges alleging Vick ran an illegal dog-fighting ring. “What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I … Some people kiss their dogs on the mouth. Some people let their dogs eat from their plate. Some people dress their dogs in suits more expensive than mine, if you can believe that.
“And some people enjoy proving they have the biggest, toughest dog on the street. You’re probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest. Maybe he identified with them in some way. You can still choose to condemn him, but I’m trying to take you inside his mind so you can understand where he might be coming from.”
That was from the column that did run. Sanders wrote another one the next week, but it never saw the light of day. NFL Network execs put the old kibosh on it.
AP Video
According to the Daily News of New York, Thomas George, the managing editor of the network, sent a terse e-mail to News-Press sports editor Ed Reed informing him that “this (Sanders) column and subsequent variations of it (are) not approved by the NFL Network. It cannot run.”
Apparently free speech isn’t valued in the country known as the National Football League. Several news stories said that the NFL Network has exclusive rights to Sanders’ image and opinions. But Seth Palansky, a spokesman for the network, said in the Daily News story that “we are simply exercising our right under our contract to have Mr. Sanders provide NFL and NFL-related analysis to us on an exclusive basis.”
I’m sorry I had to write that. The odor of the bat guano must be quite disagreeable. It’s more likely NFL suits didn’t want Sanders writing any more comments like “I believe Vick had a passion for dog fighting. I know many athletes who share his passion.” Or “Why are we indicting Vick? Was he the ringleader? Is he the big fish? Or is there someone else?”
Oh, there are plenty of someone elses who promote dogfights, bet on dog fights and train dogs to fight. Sanders said it himself: “I know many athletes who share (Vick’s) passion (for dog fighting).” There’s a dog-fighting scene in a Jay-Z video. All those animal lovers who claim they are so offended by Vick haven’t mumbled one word about that video, the producers who financed it or the director who shot it.
Miranda Rice is one woman NFL bosses can’t shut up. And thank goodness. Rice is sending e-mails around with a link to a You Tube video of a Nike commercial from a few years ago. It’s supposedly a commercial about urban basketball and features several hoops players -- most of them black -- balling on the court.
But for about half a second two snarling pit bulls going after each other appear on the screen. That prompted this question from Rice: “What possibly could have been the reason for that image to be dropped smack in the middle of a commercial about sweaty, gritty, competitive, street balling in an urban setting?”
Rob Walker, in a March 2003 column for www.slate.com, got an answer from Nike. Kind of. Walker reprinted the quote a Nike spokeswoman gave to Chris Rose, a columnist for the Times-Picayune of New Orleans.
“Our commercial focuses on the edginess of urban basketball,” the spokeswoman told Rose. “Obviously Nike does not support dog fighting. The ads are simply about the need to win. That’s the edginess we’re trying to get across.”
Walker didn’t buy that answer. Neither does Rice.
“You gotta be kidding me with that b*llsh*t,” Rice e-mailed me. “Was she serious? ‘Edginess’…’Need to win…’ So you don’t support dog fighting…you just support that it represents what you’re trying to promote? If it wasn’t so sad, it would really be funny.”
What’s even sadder is that some folks feel uncomfortable with other folks saying the obvious: Guilty or innocent, Vick has been singled out for selective prosecution.
Until a lot more celebrities in and out of sports are indicted on dog fighting charges, I refuse to believe otherwise.
