Well, the jig is up.
And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling football players.
Namely, Ray Lewis.
I had already planned out no less than four bank heists for this fall, you know, since there will be nothing to do on Sunday afternoons without the NFL, but then Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis had to go and expose my plan – along with thousands of others plans for crime – when he exposed our evil ways in an interview with ESPN’s Sal Palantonio earlier this week.
“Do this research if we don’t have a season – watch how much evil…which we call crime…watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game,” Lewis said.
Ever the dramatist, when Lewis was asked by Palantonio why he thought that, he sadly, yet passionately replied: “There’s nothing else to do, Sal.”
How did he read my mind? Does Ray Lewis have me on surveillance? Is Ray Lewis a part-time psychic? Does he know about those Algebra II assignments I didn’t complete all by myself in high school? I am freaking out a little.
In all seriousness (or not), let’s take a look at his claim.
Is it possible that we’re so obsessed with the NFL that in its absence, average Americans will run amok? Riots. Looting. Smashing windows. I’m picturing another “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel. Or perhaps a new spinoff for the CSI series.
Well, if it were true, then wouldn’t crime therefore increase each year when the NFL season ends and decrease each fall?
(Hint: it doesn’t.)
There is one demographic where in fact the NFL season does serve as a potential deterrent to crime: among NFL players themselves. According to John Mitchell of Grio.com, arrests among NFL players have spiked during the lockout.
And if crime is bound to increase somewhere due to football or lack thereof, it is actually the opposite of Lewis’ take.
Justin Wolfers, a contributor to Freakonomics, reported recently on a study showing that crime rates increase during college football game days. Assaults, vandalism and general disorderly conduct increased on game days in cities of home teams, but were basically non-existent in the cities of the visitors.
Huh.
So, when people go to football games and get drunk tailgating or by having many $8 beers from the overpriced concession stands (only in the NFL, since college football bans alcohol sales inside the stadium), you are telling me that would cause them to act out after leaving the stadium? Total mind-blower.
Now, let us get back to Lewis.
Lewis thinks the NFL lockout affects “way more than us” – the owners and the players, because “there’s too many people that live through us, people live through us.”
Moments later, when discussing the root cause of the lockout, Lewis replied that it is all because of ego.
Um, hey Ray, do you think there is a little bit of super-sized ego going on when you claim that all fans live through you and they will turn to crime in the absence of being able to see you tackle someone?
Lewis has always been a bit dramatic and preachy, and it’s obvious that many players around the league look up to him. All that has served to boost his ego and put him in a place where he feels comfortable expressing his opinions.
All of his opinions.
ESPN’s Michael Wilbon made a great point on yesterday’s Pardon The Interruption, when he said that in the current media age of Twitter and Facebook, we are taking every sound bite and dissecting it like a dead frog in freshman biology. Wilbon said it is not worth it and we should not feel the need to find every angle to every little thing an athlete says.
He is absolutely right, we should not, mainly because it causes other athletes to feel like their voice is powerful and effective and worst of all, should be heard.
This blog rips and dissects all the time, but with good reason. For decades, leading up to around 2000, we blindly worshiped our sports heroes, as well as politicians, without knowing anything about them.
But we are learning more and more about who they truly are, not only because the media is 24/7 and won’t stop until it gets the quote, but also because athletes are now readily offering up opinions on their own. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is sad. Sometimes it is just plain nonsensical.
We can either ignore what we learn or accept it. We can still idolize them, but they become more human. We realize they do and say stupid things, just like we do. Just because someone is not a good person or has clear moral flaws has very little to do with how good they are at their respective sport. Likewise, just because someone is good at their respective sport doesn’t make them an authority on issues such as politics or race.
Or crime.
It’s not like because Ray Lewis is a Super Bowl champion and future Hall of Famer he is suddenly a renowned expert on the mind of criminals, right?
Maybe if the lockout drags on and the NFL misses games, Ray can take his two talents, one for delivering violent hits with force and the other for sniffing out evil and work for the Baltimore police department. He would not even need a gun or taser, really.
Guess I should cancel the grand theft auto I had planned for late September in Maryland.
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