Opinion | Right Field: Angry analyst has NFL in his sights
Like Howard Cosell before him, Keith Olbermann rages at the moral failings in sport, regardless of who's employing him
History has been kind to Howard Cosell. The eloquent and outspoken pioneer of sports journalism has been gone now for nearly 20 years and is far more revered today then he was in his heyday in the 70s and early 80s when he was easily the most polarising figure in US sports. Cosell routinely railed against the NFL's endless greed and the way they would blackmail communities into spending public resources on building new stadiums while schools and hospitals were languishing in disrepair. And he did all this as the lead announcer on the highest rated network television show, the NFL's Monday Night Football broadcast.
At the time, I didn't think his ongoing critiques were remarkable. Yet now it boggles the mind to think that the most enduringly critical voice on the NFL came from within. It is completely inconceivable that any NFL announcer today could be even remotely critical of a league where seldom is heard a discouraging word.
What makes Olbermann unique is that he works for the very network which has a massive deal to show NFL games
Cosell described himself as "arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose and a show-off." Yes, he was all that but he was also fearless and highly principled, particularly when it came to social injustice. We can only imagine what sort of withering commentary Cosell would have on today's NFL, where every passing minute seems to uncover another sordid tale of domestic abuse and the league's tepid response to it.
ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann is an unabashed protégé of Cosell. He, too, is a polarising figure who is arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose and a show-off. He is also principled and unyielding and, yes, like Cosell he is smarter than you or I and not afraid to let you know. He is also fearless which makes him the perfect candidate to bring down NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and his farcical reign.
When Goodell decided that Baltimore running back Ray Rice deserved only a two-game suspension for beating and dragging his then fiancée from a lift at an Atlantic City casino, Olbermann instinctively called for Goodell's resignation. The public outcry overwhelmed the NFL, forcing them to change their lax stance on penalties for domestic abuse. And when another video surfaced showing the act of Rice punching her, he was suspended indefinitely and dropped from the Ravens.
