Tag Archives: Pro Football Hall of Fame

Aaron Rodgers’s white lie still stings

We won’t call Aaron Rodgers’s deception about being “immunized” instead of vaccinated against the COVID 19 virus a “little white lie.”

It goes beyond little white lie status. Let’s just call it a lie.

The Green Bay Packers quarterback is continuing to pay the price in deserved recrimination for his refusal to tell the truth — to the public — about whether he had taken the vaccine. He had taken instead some sort of cocktail of drugs that included Ivermectin, the medicine prescribed for livestock as a de-worming agent. Yeah, yeah … I get that he was prescribed by a doctor who reportedly gave him some sort of “human form” of the agent that supposedly works against the virus.

He didn’t say that. All he said was that he is “immunized.”

My beef with Rodgers — who until now I had grown to admire as a Hall of Fame-quality QB — is that his moronic reaction to the blowback suggests he doesn’t get it. He won’t take ownership of the mistake he made in lying about his vaccination status.

Rodgers now becomes what politicians like to refer to as a “distraction.” His teammates are distracted by the furor over this matter. So are the fans and the media.

This damn story won’t go away. I am not sure it should go away until Rodgers’s comes clean and owns the controversy he has created.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hall of Fame awaits Coach Johnson … how about Ring of Honor?

I cannot believe I am going to write these next few sentences, but here goes.

Former Dallas Cowboys head football coach Jimmy Johnson should be inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor … now that he is heading for enshrinement into the Pro Football of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Johnson’s stint as Cowboys’ coach was brief, but it was, um, highly productive. He coached the team to two Super Bowl victories in the 1990s. Then he mouthed off to his boss, owner/general manager Jerry Jones, who fired him.

The men once were friends, teammates at the University of Arkansas. Jones hired Johnson — a native of Port Arthur, Texas and a high school classmate of (get ready for this!) Janis Joplin — after purchasing the Cowboys and firing legendary coach Tom Landry. It was thought to be a marriage made in football heaven.

Hah! It didn’t last.

So now Johnson is going to be honored with a plaque and a statue, and he will get to wear a mustard-colored blazer at the televised induction ceremony in Canton.

He doesn’t yet have his name inscribed on the Ring of Honor at AT&T Stadium. He deserves the honor.

C’mon, Jerry Jones. Do the right thing, just as you did when you agreed to put Tom Landry’s name up there.

There. That wasn’t so painful after all, even for someone — such as me — who is no fan of the Cowboys or certainly of the team’s egomaniac owner.

Super Bowl III: Was it that long ago?

Can you believe it? Fifty years ago this weekend, Joe Willie Namath allegedly “guaranteed” that a prohibitive underdog football team would win the biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl.

As it turned out, the New York Jets did win that game, 16-7 against the Baltimore Colts. The date was Jan. 12, 1969.

One aspect made this game among the most memorable in pro football history.

It was the first victory of an American Football League team over a team from the supposedly “superior” National Football League. The AFL and NFL had brokered a merger after the two leagues battled over draft picks out of college. The merger took effect the season after the Jets-Colts Super Bowl III game. Three NFL teams — the Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers — moved into what became the American Football Conference, which competed with the National Football Conference in the newly reconstituted NFL.

The AFL had come into being in 1960. The new league proved to be an entertaining venture for football fans. I was one of them as a youngster. I followed the AFL closely during its early years, cheering the exploits of Daryle Lamonica, John Hadl, Len Dawson, Cookie Gilchrist, Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln, Lance Alworth and, oh my . . . I could go on. But I won’t.

The AFL then landed a prize rookie out of Alabama named Joe Namath. The flashy quarterback became an instant celebrity. He signed a $400,000 contract with the New York Jets.

The leagues met in two prior Super Bowls. The Green Bay Packers defeated in order the Kansas City Chiefs (35-10) in 1967 and the Oakland Raiders (33-14) in 1968.

Then came Super Bowl III. The Colts were favored by nearly three touchdowns over the Jets. Namath wasn’t hearing that. He made some kind of semi-flippant remark to reporters that many of them interpreted as a “guarantee” that the Jets would win.

Then they did. They manhandled the Colts. The AFL had gained “parity” with the NFL.

And Joe Namath had just written his ticket to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Allow me this bit of heresy, which is that Namath’s role in defeating the Colts is the only reason he is enshrined in the Hall of Fame in the first place. His career was otherwise, shall we say, not exactly sparkling. I won’t debate the issue here, except that one game can enable someone to gain athletic immortality.

Joe Namath did on that day 50 years ago. Man, some of us are getting old.