Steve Modica

Aaron Rodgers sat at that podium in Paris and said out loud what the corporate league office spends millions trying to sanitize. ​The NFL talks endlessly about “player safety” and “expanding the global game.” But behind closed doors, owners scrapped player-friendly bye weeks, forced a brutal 17th regular-season game, and shipped franchises across oceans simply because there was another dollar to squeeze out of foreign TV markets. ​While families and players navigate locked-down streets, civil tension, and grueling travel schedules, ownership sits in five-star suites counting international expansion checks. ​Rodgers doesn't care about league fines anymore. He’s telling you the truth: in the modern NFL, the brand and the balance sheet come first. The humans on the field come second.

One of the biggest issues we have as a society is platforming and magnifying loud people instead of smart & genuinely good people. It’s a huge reason for a ton of problems.

Sure you can separate a player from geopolitics if the player has nothing to do with it. That’s not the case here. I wish it was. But it’s not, @bradcsmith And this isn’t about politics. This is about a brutal, genocidal war. Actually and literally. Ovechkin could have stayed silent- like most Russian players in the NHL. Instead he proactively and prolifically supports Putin, his regime and (this is important) uses his celebrity and godlike status to help convince the Russian people that the war on Ukraine is justified and killing Ukrainians is necessary. That’s not politics. That’s blood on his hands. And he didn’t have to do this. He could have stayed silent. He didn’t. He started the western version of a super pac called Putin Team. He made posters of himself holding a sign saying essentially Putin was saving the world from Fascism by killing Ukrainians. He stood with Lavrov weeks ago as he say they’ll kill anyone who comes for them (ie Ukrainians who are defensively attacking). This has nothing to do with his politics. I could give a shit about his politics. This has to do with his active role in this war. Would you understand it better if we swapped Putin’s name for Hitler? Or Hamas? It’s an unfortunate truth that he’s an exceptional hockey player. It makes it awkward. But he’s still the bad guy here. He’s not just a hockey player. He’s an active member of the war team. No one does propaganda better than the Russians. And as long as they have the hearts and minds of their people they’ll keep slaughtering Ukrainians.

An absolutely surreal moment as the Mariners force Dan Wilson to announce his own firing