Antonio Pierce's promotion to Raiders head coach an embarrassment for NFL

[Negro Life]

One day, if it’s not too late, Roger Goodell will stand up and do
what’s right by the NFL and its consumers for no better reason than
it’s the right thing to do.

In the meantime, don’t waste any anticipation on the highly
unlikely.

Last week, the most dysfunctional, criminally inclined franchise on
Goodell’s feckless watch, the Las Vegas Raiders — a recidivist
producer of astonishingly misguided misanthropic first-round draft
picks, one recently sentenced for vehicular homicide, another for
brandishing illegal guns — named ex-Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce
as its temporary head coach presumably with Goodell’s approval.

A more discriminate, cautious chief executive would not have allowed
this, and the Raiders, knowing that Goodell would never indulge
such, wouldn’t have even tried it.

After all, Pierce’s NFL bio reads more as an indictment than an
endorsement.

Another bad-is-good ESPN hire immediately after Pierce’s 2010
retirement, one of his first assignments as a national TV NFL
analyst was to provide week-of behavioral advice to young players
about to appear in their first Super Bowl.

Pierce advised, first and foremost, mature, stay-in, sober, focus-
on-the game civil conduct.

Left unspoken was Pierce’s own Super Bowl week conduct, in 2008,
when in Arizona for the Giants’ win over the undefeated Patriots.

Pierce was no rookie at the time.

He was 30, but apparently not old enough to realize that the
flagrant neglect of pet animals is both revolting and criminal.

He had abandoned his two pit bulls at his New Jersey home to take
care of themselves, food and all.

Only when neighbors alerted cops that his two pit bulls were on the
loose and unattended at his home did animal control arrive to learn
that neither had been vaccinated against rabies, and one was sick
and undernourished.

Coach Pierce, as he’ll be identified in Sunday’s game against the
Giants, pleaded guilty to animal neglect and paid a $1,300 fine.

At the time the Giants were playing the Pats in the Super Bowl,
Pierce was making nearly $5 million per — not enough to pay someone
to tend to his dogs.

Perhaps I haven’t lived long or hung out with the wrong crowd, but
I’ve yet to know anyone charged with neglecting to animals. You?

Later that year, Pierce was with teammate Plaxico Burress in a
nightclub early one Saturday morning when Burress shot himself with
the .40-caliber Glock he illegally carried.

Pierce’s actions, from that moment on, again seemed designed to
cause deep wonder and suspicion.

He didn’t call for an ambulance — immediate medical attention for
Burress — but chose to drive him to the hospital, where Burress was
registered under a phony name, then Pierce reportedly left the
hospital with Burress’ gun stashed in his car.

The doctor who treated Burress would be suspended for failure to
report a gunshot wound. Days later, according to reports, the cops
had to find Pierce, not vice versa, in search of that gun.

And the Giants had a game at Washington the next day.

Again, I can only go with my values, my sense of right from wrong.

But I can’t recall the last time a colleague of mine shot himself
while in a nightclub early in the morning the day before our biggest
day of work, so I’m not sure what I’d have done.

But unlike ESPN and now the NFL’s Raiders, I would not have placed
Pierce on my payroll in any capacity, let alone head coach.

Yet Sunday he debuts as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders under
the $70-plus million per supervision of Roger Goodell.

Weak choice for Player of Week
If Roger Goodell’s NFL has become tough to stomach, the NFL’s
Players Association, long given to defend the NFL’s most
conspicuously indefensible after they’ve been fined and/or suspended
for on-field assaults of fellow unionists, offers no respite.

Last week the NFLPA named Giants defensive end — now and then —
Kayvon Thibodeaux its Player of the Week for meritorious service to
the NFL community.

Wonder how union teammate Nick Foles feels about that?

Last season, Foles, as the Colts’ QB, was sacked from behind by
Thibodeaux.

Foles, clearly injured, was spread, motionless while Thibodeaux,
lying right beside him, began an extended and excessively immodest
“snow angels” routine — 11 of them.

Of course, CBS’ “Hollerin’ ” Kevin Harlan ignored Foles in favor of
Thibodeaux’s attention-starved act. Who knows, Harlan still may be
hollering to his empty-headed delight.

After the game, Thibodeaux excused himself as not knowing that
Foles, soon to be carted off to a hospital, was injured, while he
performed his skit of self-approval.

But moments later on the sideline, after it became clear Foles was
seriously injured, Thibodeaux was seen on the sideline laughing it
up, performing put-him-to-sleep gestures.



Yes, there’s a lot to be said and tens of millions to be paid for
neglect.

ESPN plucking quotes from past is a Dame shame
Must everything now be a con, no matter how worthless?

Not that it will shame it to place honesty over cheap, fleeting
self-promotion, but ESPN last week was caught cheating and lying.

Again …

ESPN presented a “current” interview with new Bucks star Damian
Lillard, who declared, “Dame didn’t come to Milwaukee to waste his
time.”

An audio clip included Lillard saying, “I told you when I first came
here. I said, ‘I didn’t come here to waste my time.’ ”

But that entire package was doctored — “conflated” in modern media
terms — to appear as same-day content. In reality it was from when
Lillard played for the Trail Blazers.

We’ve several times reported such ESPN fabrications.

In 2003 after the Japanese Little League team won the World Series,
it was shown as guests of the Mets in a suite.

And when Japanese Mets infielder Kazuo Matsui homered, the kids were
seen on that night’s “SportsCenter” in spontaneous joy.


I even played party to an ESPN scam, appearing in a video to give my
two cents about an issue.

But that video had been clipped from an older interview that had
nothing to do with this topic.

And when ESPN began to take heat for its cheap, dishonest practice
of taking full or partial credit for stories broken outside of ESPN
— a sickening practice that has spread — an ESPN ombudsman issued a
memo to staff that essentially read, “While we never do that, we
have to stop doing it.”


“We occasionally look to connect sports moments of the past with
contemporary imagery and storylines as part of our social content.
While it was never our intention to misrepresent anything for fans,
we completely recognize how this instance caused confusion.”

Just another form of “believe what we say, not what you see.”

https://nypost.com/2023/11/04/sports/antonio-pierces-raiders-
promotion-an-embarrassment-for-nfl/