All this pearl-clutching going on about a man's crotch, and it's 100% ersatz. I'm guessing that no member of the viewing public called the FCC or NFL offices to complain after Sunday's game. The replay barely caught Marshawn Lynch's "adjustment." I had to look two times at the replay after I'd read that it was there. You've got grown men trying to knock each other out on the field while playing for a league that tried to cover up facts about their brain injuries. A league that sold VHS tapes about the hardest of these hits. A brief tug, along with the color of a man's shoes, is what passes for controversy? A suspendable offense?
If you'll recall, there was not a peep after the Beastquake crotch-grab - even though everyone saw it. There was no public outcry, no children whisked from the monitor. My guess is that most people who saw it thought, "well, the man deserves a victory pose after something like that." What has changed in the past few years?
Ostensibly, the difference is that ESPN and other bleeding/leading controversy hounds, spurned by Marshawn's silence, now have an axe to grind, and the memes drop in succession: Marshawn = standoffish clod. Marshawn = mental case. Marshawn = thug. In coded language, of course. Even so, pretty ugly stuff.
If this was a legitimate issue of puritans getting rankled, that would be silly enough. This is not that. This is low-level media revenge, and I say that as someone who stinted as a sportswriter. No wonder Marshawn prefers silence to prattle.
