I wouldn’t know, however – because I wasn’t able to watch it. No, even if you already had an overpriced cable subscription, you were left out in the cold because the only way you could view it was if you signed up for NBC’s streaming service Peacock for the recurring price of $5.99 a month.

I remember when the advent of streamers was supposed to lower our overall cost and enable us to “cut the cord” from cable. Unfortunately, however, for many like me, all that it’s actually meant is more cost and more subscriptions to keep track of. I canceled Disney+ after they fired Gina Carano for daring to have an opinion that didn’t fit the leftist worldview – but then my teens demanded I reinstate it for some must-see show or other. There’s MAX, there’s Netflix, there’s Amazon Prime, there’s Peacock – all fine, do your thing, I’ll sign up if I feel the need. But to make me sign up for some stupid service just to watch a football game that should be on broadcast television? Now you’ve gone too far.

Instead of cutting the cord, many of us with big families are saddled with way too many optional services we don’t really need. I’m tempted to cancel each and every one of them and to tell my kids to go play cards or “Clue” or something.

I feel the NFL made a serious mistake on this one, and viewership for this big contest was probably way below what it would have been had they shown it on NBC – like they’ve been doing for decades. I understand the need for companies to try to keep up with emerging technology, but this was a B.S. move in my opinion and will annoy millions of fans just like it angered me.

Even some Chiefs players deplored the move: 

LEGENDARY: #Chiefs d-lineman Charles Omenihu heard that the #Chiefs playoff game was exclusively on Peacock this week so he is giving away 90 3-month memberships to KC fans, out of his OWN POCKET.

So damn cool, @charless_94 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/CEQL8i3CpQ

— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) January 11, 2024

But the NFL wasn’t done. In 2021, the league inexplicably entered the fraught social conversation after the death of George Floyd and embraced the Marxist BLM movement, promoting it on helmets, end zone messages, and social media initiatives. 

On Saturday, they decided to continue their divisive messaging, and I noticed the Houston Texans’ helmets – in a playoff game I was actually allowed to watch on NBC without forking over dollars to another streaming service – had the inscription, “Be Love.” Hardly an inspiring message for a football game, I thought to myself. I mean, I’m all for love, but not right before a physical contest where the goal is to smack your opponent and manhandle them to the turf. So I looked it up, and this is what I found out:

The NFL unveiled three new ways that will deepen its commitment to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy throughout Super Wild Card Weekend and beyond.

To kick off the weekend, the league announced a five-year commitment to Realizing the Dream (RTD), a platform created by Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King and Yolanda Renee King. RTD aims to unite more than seven million young people, 200,000 educators, and millions of employees around the globe through service initiatives focused on the tenets of social change and community impact. Over the next five years, the NFL and additional corporations will work with the King Family and Legacy+ to help fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for an equitable and united America. [Emphasis mine.]

There's only one little problem with this missive, however -- they wholly misrepresented MLK Jr.’s dream. If you look at the entire text of his seminal “I Have a Dream Speech,” the word “equity” appears exactly nowhere. The concept was not one he advocated for, nor was it what he said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Nor did MLK Jr. utter the phrase "be love" in the 1963 speech -- or anywhere else that I can find. It was actually concocted in 2021 by The King Center as a pledge inspired by these words from King’s 1967 book, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

In other words, he never said it.

I do love the NFL, however, and even though I’ve mostly tuned away this year, I was excited about the playoffs. Too bad I couldn’t watch the most crucial game. But one other thing caught my eye: the cringe-worthy commercial hawking of the discredited COVID mRNA vaccines featuring Martha Stewart, the insufferable soccer “star,” American-hating Megan Rapinoe, woke singer John Legend, some musician I’ve never heard of, and Taylor Swift’s current boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. While Kelce is a great player, he belittles himself with this apparent money grab. 

To be fair, this was not the NFL's commercial, it was Pfizer's, but the league has pushed the vax plenty in the past, even giving away Super Bowl tickets for those who get the jab.

.@NFL wouldn’t let me watch the most crucial playoff game of the season (Chiefs/Dolphins) but @pfizer found the time to peddle this crap during Texans/Browns. pic.twitter.com/P44FqhwlMz

— Bob Hoge (@Bob_Hoge_CA) January 14, 2024

I’m not going to go on a long diatribe about everything that is wrong with the failed vaccines – we have done plenty of that, along with former New York Times reporter and author Alex Berenson – but it’s disturbing to see this kind of garbage foisted upon us when we’re just trying to watch the one game that we’re allowed to this Saturday. 

I grew up watching the NFL and still love it. But quite frankly, my enthusiasm for the league has waned in recent years, and the more I see of these kinds of things, the more I wonder whether I’m simply done with it. 

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