In the meantime, although they aren't engaged in doing anything particularly helpful about it, the NFL marketing department would still like us all to be "aware" of a particular health condition. At least for a month anyway. At least while we're watching football. The NFL is participating in National Breast Cancer Awareness Month by conspicuously featuring the color pink on field and player equipment during games.
Reggie Bush heightens our awareness of his new pink cleats
Were you previously unaware of this period of awareness? Peggy Orenstein (writing back in 2002) explains it for you here.
Consider Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is every October. Its founder, the drug maker AstraZeneca, manufactures the breast cancer drug tamoxifen and other chemotherapies, but until recently it made agrochemicals as well.
It's a perfect profit circle.
DuPont, another sponsor of awareness programs, continues to manufacture pesticides that contain known carcinogens. So this month, we are likely to hear a great deal about "prevention" in the form of behavior modification and diet but will not hear that as many as half of all cancers are not associated with known risk factors. The "e word"--environment--if it comes up at all, will be quickly dismissed.
We will also hear that early detection is the best protection. We will not hear that mammograms miss 25% of cancers in women under 50. Nor will we hear that, in many cases, early detection makes no difference in outcome, either because the woman's disease is too aggressive or because it is sufficiently nonaggressive that she'd be just as likely to survive or die if she waited until she or her doctor discovered a lump.
Meanwhile, a 10-year study published this month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, covering more than 250,000 women, showed virtually no difference in death rates from breast cancer between those who did monthly breast self-examinations and those who did not. We also will not hear that too little has changed in the treatment of breast cancer since President Nixon raised the battle cry in 1971. Our choices are still slash, burn and poison.
Women without health insurance don't even have those options.
In fairness, the NFL's participation in this program is not entirely ineffectual. Here is an exhaustive list of NFL sponsored events and programs this month, most of which are aimed at raising funds for the Susan G. Komen foundation. The Komen foundation, the nation's largest breast cancer research charity, is itself sometimes criticized for being so big and powerful that it may be functioning to the greater detriment of medical research funding.
The saturation of breast cancer awareness has left even some survivors dismayed. Writer, social critic, and former breast cancer patient Barbara Ehrenreich has called the movement “an outbreak of mass delusion,” and “a cult.”
“The products — teddy bears, pink-ribbon brooches, and so forth — serve as amulets and talismans, comforting the sufferer and providing visible evidence of faith,” she has written.
Such faith is not the best way to allot research dollars, argues Dr. Ann Flood, director of health policy studies at Dartmouth University. “It is certainly not rational by any means,” Flood, herself a breast cancer survivor, says. She believes breast cancer is worthy of generous funding, but “I do not think we should be doing it in this micromanaged way, which diseases we should study.”
Funding that is driven by public demand comes with risks. Just because a campaign is successful “does not mean science is at the point where it can do anything with the money that could fruitfully go someplace else,” says Caplan.
Komen is also frequently criticized as a facilitator of corporate "pinkwashing", the marketing gimmick by which companies dress their products in an image-enhancing veneer of hollow altruism.
Since 2002, the group Breast Cancer Action has promoted its "Think Before You Pink" campaign. It's fighting "pinkwashing," which is when corporations try to boost sales by associating their products with the fight against breast cancer. Pinkwashing is a form of slacktivism -- a campaign that makes people feel like they're helping solve a problem, while they're actually doing more to boost corporate profits.By "going pink" during an October when the country is debating crucial health care reform legislation, the NFL is engaging in a mild form of pinkwashing. They're raising "awareness" of a deadly cancer while ignoring the crisis of so many of its victims left without affordable treatment or detection.
Saints vs Jets
- Wait, wait, one more thing. How many of these pink-cleated heroes of ours are participating in Awareness Month purely as a matter of conviction? No doubt, there are a few players who have lost a friend or family member to cancer. And, of course, it's hard to imagine how any of them would be hostile to victims and their families. But even so, how much admiration should we really be lavishing on these players for exhibiting the social conscience necessary to comply with the (compulsory?) directives of a league uniform memo?
For contrast, consider that last week we read that Saints linebacker Scott Fujita is one of only a few pro football players to take a public stand in favor of marriage equality.Scott Fujita, defensive captain of the New Orleans Saints, supports Ayanbadejo's stance. "I hope he's right in his prediction, and I hope even more that it doesn't take that long. People could look at this issue without blinders on...the blinders imposed by their church, their parents, their friends or, in our case, their coaches and locker rooms. Fujita continued, "I wish they would realize that it's not a religion issue. It's not a government issue. It's not even a gay/straight issue or a question of your manhood. It's a human issue. And until more people see that, we're stuck arguing with people who don't have an argument." Fujita has also endorsed the October 11 National Equality March in Washington.
In this case, Fujita is taking a principled public stand likely to be unpopular with a majority of his peers. Many of his peers, in turn, wearing pink, are pretty much just doing what they're told. - OMG We're going to Disneyworld! Holy crap the Saints are 4-0! What do we do? Do we buy our tickets to Miami? Are we supposed to nickname the defense? Are there any undisclosed side-effects of over-exposure to greatness fumes? Who knows? We don't! We already (sort of) owe somebody a case of Abita beer or some other prize to be named later over this business so, by all means, feel free to go nuts in whatever way suits you best. (Okay maybe not that way) It is in no way our aim today to pull any of you down from whatever cloud you may be resting upon currently. But we're likely to make one or two of our customarily negative observations here so before we get to any of that let us say firstly that we wish it to be known we think the Saints are playing pretty good football right now. Winning football teams excel at running the ball and playing defense. In four games, the 2009 Saints have done those things more convincingly than their most recent predecessors. And because of this, they look more like a winning football team at this point than those teams ever did.
At least it's not an Hebert-inspired (Hebert-ish? Hebertic?) gesture - Fire Miles During the second quarter of a mostly excruciating game vs. Georgia, Les Miles' team had an opportunity to kick a field goal which, if successful, would have increased their lead from 6 to 9 points, the crucial difference between being ahead by one or two scores. Miles, instead, opted for a far less strategically sensible attempt to convert a 4th and short. His team's failure to come through on the high-risk/low-reward gamble weighed greatly on the game in its later stages where the fates, once again, decided to spare Miles his long-due comeuppance for his staggering stupidity. Les Miles is a horrible but lucky football coach. The problem with that is each day his luck delays his firing is another day his horribleness continues to damage the LSU program.
- This week's Dome complaints 1) This week, due to our country's continued descent into mass public paranoia over the mere mention of the nebulous term "terrorism", Saints fans were subjected to a supposedly more thorough security screening upon entering the Superdome. The reviews of the new security were mixed. Fear of a more thorough search deterred some of us from bringing our flask with us this week. And so the actual experience of walking through the checkpoint barely examined or even noticed left us frustrated and regretful of our decision. On the other hand, others of us reported more serious searches at other entry points where fans were witnessed being heavily patted down and asked to turn out their pockets. r observed that "heightened security" at the Superdome primarily appeared to mean, "more white people" performing the screenings than usual.
2) Because we had no flask and were thusly obliged to purchase beer on site, we had occasion to observe that the television behind the concession stand in our section of the Terrace continues to be non-functional. - Both teams in this game seemed a little intimidated by one another. The Saints definitely and the Jets apparently employed a much more conservative offensive strategy than we've grown accustomed to seeing in pro football in recent years. Both defenses dominated. Both quarterbacks were confused and ineffective. The Saints won by virtue of the fact that they were able to run the ball a little and because the other team's quarterback sucked even worse than theirs did. More on the Jets' crappy QB in a minute. Drew Brees looked like crap on Sunday.
Ordinarily calm and smooth in the pocket, Brees seemed more hesitant than usual. Frequently he would reset his feet or shuffle uncomfortably while appearing to struggle with his reads. I don't remember seeing him pump fake once during this game which is something he seems to do when he knows what he wants from a defense. On one play he rolled right and threw an out route that should have been intercepted and would have gone for a touchdown had the defender not dropped the ball. Overall it was the worst we've seen Brees play since the last time he faced a Rex Ryan defense in 2006. (BTW reading over that post, it looks like I gave Brees a pass in that game. Must have been faulty analysis) But this time the Saints won anyway. That could mean the Saints have a better team these days or it could mean that Mark Sanchez sucks.
Even Poochie doesn't seem very impressed with Brees this week. Maybe it's the pink cleats. - Mark Sanchez sucks Who could have possibly guessed that a loudly hyped, undersized, underwear model from USC would turn out to be less of a football player than originally advertised? Okay, other than the Saints fans who have been watching Reggie Bush play for three years now, who would have guessed such a thing? Of course, one would expect those same Saints fans to have enough of a handle on what's going on here to not hold up the sucky performance of an overrated quarterback as evidence that they're watching the BEST DEFENSE OF ALL TIME, but one can't have everything.
Here's a video of the Jets' sucky spoiled brat of a quarterback displaying his inability to cope with failure by taking it out on Jonathan Vilma's knees.
Sanchez was fined. Vilma was okay. Don't expect it to affect Sanchez's modeling fee, though. - Asshole play of the week Sanchez may seem like a lock for this honor but he was outdone by his fellow USC alum Reggie Bush who we called out last week for cutting a play back across the field and obligating Brees to serve as a lead blocker on the improvised play. Amazingly, Bush managed to pull the exact same stunt for a second week in a row. Really hard to top that.
Assholery 101 Part of the core curriculum at So. Cal - Plain old Reggie Bush is crappy play of the game With the Saints protecting a 17-3 third quarter lead, Reggie Bush fumbled the ball on his own 30. (Maybe it was the "hot sauce") The Jets scored 4 plays later to pull within a touchdown. This was Bush's third fumble in four games this year. After a lengthy examination of the various problems with Bush, GW concludes,
But the main thing is that 12.5 touches from scrimmage per game is a career low. He’s becoming progressively less relevant on offense. And at the moment, he’s a bonafide liability on special teams. It could be reasonably argued based on production per touch that he’s a liability on offense.
On a team that relied more heavily on his services, Reggie Bush would be a classic example of the "just-good-enough-to-get-you-beat" guy. Luckily they appear to be moving rapidly away from heavy reliance on him.
Because, ultimately, it is a zero-sum game. People like to claim that it’s not, but it is. You only run N offensive plays per game, whatever N happens to be on a given Sunday. Every touch one offensive player gets is a touch some other offensive player doesn’t get. And every touch that a less-productive player gets is lost yards.
Evidently, Sean Payton is slowly but surely coming around to this point of view. And that’s the silver lining here. - This week's media complaint The Monday T-P "Viewpoint" edition ran its Saints statistics cartoon again. It featured, Colston (2 receptions 33 yards) Devery (3 receptions 21 yards) Frenchy (4 reception 46 yards; 86 yards rushing) Bush (3 receptions 7 yards; 37 yards rushing) and for the second week in a row, to our continuing mystification, Mike Bell who did not participate.
I know this seems like a small thing but why does this keep happening? Poochie had 4 catches for 34 yards. Robert Meachem had one very important reception for 19 yards late in the game. We know the T-P has each of those cartoon images available in its clip-art file. Why do they keep giving us a pointless picture of Bell? Are they afraid we're going to forget what he (sort-of) looks like? - Unusual numbers Through four games:
Devery Henderson has 235 yards on 14 receptions
Marques Colston has 228 yards on 17 receptions
Bush has 269 yards rushing and recieving
Pierre Thomas has 254 combined yards
Darren Sharper has 275 yards returning 5 interceptions which leads the Saints in yards from scrimmage. - What would Les do? At two crucial turning points in this game, Coach Soupy made questionable decisions which should have blown the game for the Saints but did not due to Milesesque luck.
During the second quarter, in a game where it was quickly becoming evident that points would be difficult to come by, the Saints had an opportunity to add three to their ten point lead. Instead, Coach Soupy decided to Les up on us. He elected to send his offense back onto the field and run an unusual and difficult-to-execute tackle-eligible pass play. The gimmick play failed and the Jets took over on downs. Luckily for Soupy, Will Smith was able to chase down and strip the ball from the Jets' sucky and bewildered quarterback two plays later. The Saints fell on the ball in the endzone. Soupy got away with being a tool.
Late in the game, with his team protecting a 7 point lead, the Saints could have trotted out their MVP of the season-to-date (punter Thomas Morstead) and pinned the Jets deep in their own territory. Instead, Coach Soupy decided to Les up on us. He elected to send his offense back onto the field in a mincing, cowardly attempt to draw the Jets offsides. Luckily for Soupy, the gimmick move actually worked when Jets DT tackle Kris Jenkins fell for the lamest trick in the book and jumped the snap on 4th and 1. Jenkins should have been cut immediately for being such a tool. He won't be. Soupy should have had to answer for his decision to employ this cowardly and unsportsmanlike strategy. But, because he was lucky, he won't. One problem with this football season so far is the staggering lack of cosmic justice being dispensed. - Troubling thought Am I the only person who sees this game becoming a popular film to study for opposing coaches who want to learn how to stop the Saints offense? It could make the rest of the season a bit more difficult.
Just before this game, Chris Rose's column, of all possible unlikely places, reminded us of the following fact.
The Jets and the Giants' fan bases are so desperate to cling to some dregs of their former identities as working-class teams and lunch-bucket Joes, slogging through the muddy gridiron of America's greatest city. But, in fact, here's the saddest thing you've ever heard: New York City actually has no NFL football teams.
Zero, zilch, zed, nada, rien, big fat goose egg.
Zippity-do.
The Giants and the Jets both relocated to New Jersey back when the wishbone offense was still held in high regard, but they both kept their New York City labels as some grasping and desperate means to keep from acknowledging that, in fact, they play in the . . . suburbs.
God, how painful it must be to see these words in print if you're a Jet or Giants fan. I mean: Who's going to wet themselves when the schedule says that the East Rutherford Jets are coming to town?
Then, two weeks later, the Giants come to town. The Big, Bad New Jersey Giants.
All this "New Jersey" talk kind of got us thinking. Now that we're four years into the Sean Payton regime, it might be about time for us to purchase a new jersey featuring a more current player number than our accustomed Sammy Knight 29. Not that we're looking to give that up any time soon. We get more comments on our Sammy jersey on any given day at the Dome than Sammy had interceptions in his career (a lot) But this group has been fun to watch and we figure we should preserve a memento of this period in history for ourselves.
But the candidates from the among the current roster of Saints present surprisingly few decent options for purchase. We first floated this idea last week in a First-Draft comment thread and, since then, have narrowed our choices to these.
1) Devery Henderson: This former Tiger has taken his share of criticism over the years and this entire time we've been standing up for him. Now that he appears to be finally getting his due, we might like to share in a bit of that glory. The one caveat here is that receivers are always so expendable that we're expecting any season with the Saints could be Devery's last. If we buy his jersey it's likely to be the kiss of death in that regard.
2) Scott Fujita: As we mentioned above, Fujita is a bright, outspoken guy who seems to be on the right side of a lot of stuff. On the other hand, he's a mediocre player on a mediocre defense.
3) Pierre Thomas: We like Frenchy for two reasons. First, he is not Reggie Bush. Second his shifty, low center of gravity running style reminds us of former Saint and Tiger Dalton Hilliard who we grew up idolizing. But for some reason, we don't quite think the Frenchy era of Saints football has arrived yet. Maybe by the end of the season this will be different.
4) Thomas Morstead: We wrote about this last week. The dude is the most valuable player on the roster so far this season. Just look at the effusive praise he has garnered from coaches and teammates. 13 year vet Darren Sharper is quoted in that article as saying Morstead is the best he's ever seen.
Morstead is the clear front runner in the new jersey sweepstakes but we'll leave the following poll up for a few weeks and revisit the issue then.
Poll closes Oct 19. Enjoy the bye week.
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