Commissioner Craziness

Jeb Bush? Condoleeza Rice?!? What the heck is going on here? I can certainly understand the NFL’s difficulty in selecting a commissioner who is well qualified to…..hand out fines…and…read 32 names off of index cards once a year…and….do other important stuff, I’m sure, but really, can’t we keep politics out of the selection process? One thing I’ve enjoyed about the NFL is the apparent lack of political involvement over the years. They seem to have done a decent job of maintaining a separation of football and state, and I’d like to see it stay that way. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t voted Republican in a long while, not since Cindy Downing ran on the ‘more vending machines in the cafeteria’ platform in junior high. But I would like to see both parties stay the heck away from my NFL. No Bushes, no Kennedys, no Clintons. There is certainly no shortage of worldly topics we can argue about. The NFL, on the other hand, is simply about football (unless you’re an owner, and then it’s simply about money). Discussing whether Reggie Bush should be allowed to wear number 5 should be as serious as things get in the NFL. That’s why I love it. I can judge a man solely on which team he supports, and not on his political affiliation. A Cowboys fan, whether he’s a Republican, Democrat or Independent, is still an idiot. So I don’t see why we have to start getting politicians involved. So, I’ve done some thinking, and I’ve come up with my own short list of qualified candidates, people who will bring more to the table than just poofy hair and a knack for imitating corpses (no offense, Tags). Sam Kinnison : Yes, I’m aware that he’s dead. But even dead, he’s got way more sense of humor than Tags does alive. If we could get Sam in his prime, we’d probably get way fewer fines for inappropriate conduct, seeing as though Sam wasn’t exactly and angel himself, and we’d have way more screaming at press conferences. The bottom line would be that we’d get rid of the ‘No Fun League’ tag pretty darn quick. Rebecca Romijn : I’m sure that Ms. Romijn seems about as qualified to be the NFL Commissioner as the turkey sandwich I had for lunch today. But there are two advantages to this appointment. The first is that the ratings for draft day would skyrocket, and ESPN may in fact decide to ask the commish to read all the selections for all the rounds. In a skimpy bathing suit, no less. More money in the networks’ pockets means bigger TV deals for the NFL, which in turn means a bigger salary cap. And we all know how Dan likes his big salary cap. The second advantage would be that players would intentionally do things on the field to get fined, just so they could appeal and get a face-to-face meeting with the commissioner to discuss the matter. This would translate into more interesting football games. So there are two major reason why Ms. Romijn is actually qualified for the job. Plus, she’s way hot. My Wife : In a previous life, my wife ran an office of about 30 whining engineers, all of whom were men. In this life, she cares for two whining boys. So 32 whining NFL owners is a like a walk in the park. Sick of hearing rich men argue about how many millions they should be making? My wife will settle that one pretty quickly. With her experience, she’ll take crap from no one. ‘Jerry! Put those down! Those are Dan’s cigars. Go have a time-out.’ The other benefit to this choice would be that I’m fairly sure that with my wife as commissioner, I’d get just about all the free ‘skins stuff I could ever want, plus a luxury box or two at FedEx Field. Sweet. So that’s my list. Completely non-political. Sure, there are other motivations, like seeing Rebecca Romijn in a bikini more often, or getting free stuff, but hey, they’re better reasons than creating political connections. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to see Rich McKay in a bathing…