CHOKING SIGN
NBC, league try best to ignore Donald antics
HOW MUCH wood could a woodchuck ignore if a woodchuck could ignore wood? Glad you asked. The question on many fans’ minds — I count for at least two of them, given my psychological state of late — immediately after Rams superstar defensive lineman Aaron Donald was flagged for trying to choke a Cardinals opponent during their playoff game two Monday nights ago, was simple but significant:
Would Donald be suspended from Sunday’s game against the Buccaneers?
After all, he’d been fined $10,300 for trying to strangle Packers offensive lineman Lucas Patrick in Week 12. (Consider the QB who tries to call an audible without a trachea.) And he’d had more than a few prior penalized episodes of not playing nicely with others.
For an added element, Donald wears a Roger Goodell-issued “Stop Hate” message on the back of his helmet. That certainly would have added some show to the tell.
So it was just a matter of when the NFL — even with pandering, gutless, selectively blind Goodell at the wheel — would announce its sanctions against Donald.
But the week passed without a word. Surely, Sunday, in its 1-hour-long, 10-contributors Rams-Bucs pregame, NBC would address this, provide us the latest.
But not a word. We heard, near the top, that Donald will be a major factor due to his greatness. Then, in a pandering, banal “interview” with Mike Tirico, Donald was told that he’s a very special player. Even if he just might be a dirty one. His conspicuous “Post-Play Strangler” instincts never came up. Yet, there was time to include — surprise! surprise! — a lighthearted chat with TV’s latest in a series of wrongly presumed favorites, Odell Beckham Jr. Then on with the game. And more, “Gee, that Aaron Donald is great” stuff, this time from Cris Collinsworth. Only late Saturday afternoon, the day before Donald would play versus the Bucs, did NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweet that Donald had been fined a mere $500 more — $10,800 — for his second assault of a live esophagus. That mostly closeted news arrived five days after Donald’s latest oxygen-obstructing episode, as if the NFL didn’t want anyone to know. Thus, what would have and should have been near the top of NBC’s pregame show “To Do” list in service to viewers, went totally ignored. Suspension? Goodell’s NFL and TV partner NBC apparently preferred that you forgot the whole thing. Oh, and Stop Hate.