I am not talking about the game and league or even Damar Hamlin. I am talking about the players versus the fans and how the former did not fulfil their obligation to the latter. That big corporations have gotten away with giving themselves a legal out for failing to deliver does not make it right for the players to give up because they are upset over someone who was and is still alive. As I said before, Hamlin was hurt. No one else was. Being sad is not a reason to fail to fulfil the services you are contracted to deliver. The cancelation option is understood to be there for reasonable things beyond the control of human capacity. Like a flood, tornado, hurricane or terrorist attack. Or a player's heart stopping. The decision by 100+ grown, healthy and well to do young men not to play, because their sybaritic lifestyles, whose work is focused on self-oriented labors and self-promotion, were shaken by a glimpse of the reality of the transient nature of human life, is not such an occurrence.

And "stars and scrubs" is relativistic bullshit. If you want relativity, the percentage of fans in the outdoor seats in the stadium who make more than half a million dollars a year is almost certainly in the single digits, as opposed to 100% of the overgrown boys who walked off the field in solidarity with their fellow rich kids. Minimum wage for no service time in the NFL is over $600,000. Just the fact that we can call such people "scrubs" and bemoan their 'mistreatment' shows how out of touch with reality are the standards by which they are treated and viewed.

"The world didn't end because one of the most anticipated games of this season was not completed. Nor will it end if it is not replayed. If both teams are awarded a tie or a loss, or nothing at all, big fucking deal." and if Commissioner Cannoli was running the NFL and gave both teams a loss and forfeited their playoff berths in favor of teams that have not bailed on a nationally televised game, it would be a very tiny percentage of all the people preaching about how little football matters, who would agree with us. Millions of them would leap to defend any player who complained about forfeiting his paycheck for a game he did not, in fact, play. If the NFL levies ANY sort of penalty on the teams or punishment, they, and their advocates will have a shitfit, proving that their trauma, grief and prioritizing the health of Damar Hillman is fair-weather only.

I will admit that there are rather cynical assumptions undergirding my position, such as the fact that most of the players' grief and sorrow is rather shallow, however sincere at the moment, and they will not embrace any consequences for their actions with dignity and a conviction of their positions. Their empathy and bond with Hillman is a purely luxury sentiment, embraced only because it is no trouble to do so. Much like Colin Kaepernick's principles (and for the record, I think what Allen & Burrows & co did on Monday is worse than Kaepernick, who simply gambled on the relative popularity and attitudes regarding the cause he embraced at the expense of another). I will retract and admit it, if there ARE consequences to their choice and they accept them with grace, and live up to their implicit assertion that Hillman is more important to them than a multi-million dollar business and commitments to the same. But I don't think they will have to. I think they will suffer no real consequences and, more likely, will be lauded and praised for the equivalent of calling in sick because of a mild existential crisis.

This is the Ray Rice thing all over again, where the league postures as if it is taking a principled stand, and merely does the easiest thing, instead of doing something to actually address the problem. If they REALLY cared about his wife, they would have done more to her benefit than demote her from millionaire football WAG to wife of a man with a history of violence, a publicly-trashed reputation and no better employment prospects than the least of his Rutgers graduating class.