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Rush Limbaugh Looms Darkly Over the NFL, Players Speak Out

By ArtieFufkin

Earlier this week, we learned that controversial right-wing radio host (and world-class pompous jackass) Rush Limbaugh is part of a group that is bidding to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

Limbaugh is an avid football fan, and you may remember that he was even a short-lived member of the ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown crew.  That was, until while discussing Donovan McNabb, Limbaugh observed that “the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well”.  He resigned less than a week later, amid public outcry.

Well, the prospect of Limbaugh becoming a part of NFL ownership has already evoked a backlash from some players in the league.  Giants LB Mathias Kiwanuka and Jets LB Bart Scott came right out and said that they would not play for the Rams if Limbaugh was part of the team’s ownership:

“All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting ‘right on,’” Kiwanuka told The Daily News. “I mean, I don’t want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play.”

[Jets LB Bart] Scott says players remember what Limbaugh said, and adds that the NFL would be wise not to allow the nationally syndicated host into the league. “It’s an oxymoron that he criticized Donovan McNabb,” Scott said. “A lot of us took it as more of a racial-type thing. I can only imagine how his players would feel. I know I wouldn’t want to play for him. He’s a jerk. He’s an —. What he said (about McNabb) was inappropriate and insensitive, totally off-base. He could offer me whatever he wanted, I wouldn’t play for him. … I wouldn’t play for Rush Limbaugh. My principles are greater and I can’t be bought.”

If this might seem like too much is being made of one comment in his past, it’s fair to point out that Limbaugh has exhibited a pattern of racially insensitive comments. He also once publicly opined that “the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”

Ugggh. Poor Steve Spagnuolo.  As if the 0-4 Rams needed any more of a dark cloud hanging over their franchise.