Hear me out...Things I didn't miss about the NFL

The NFL season is here and after a quiet offseason, or the other sports drowning out any NFL news, it's nice to have pro football back. Granted the real NFL season doesn't start for another five weeks, but the preseason does offer fantasy players to prepare for the upcoming season and for fans to get wildly optimistic about their teams, only to have those hopes and expectations crushed in the first two weeks of the season.

With those nice things out of the way, what I didn't miss about the NFL during their absence was commissioner Roger Goodell and Jerry Jones and some of his other owner friends. Who at every turn try their absolute hardest to make you hate their game.

A quick side note on Jerry Jones, what is going on with his hair? The man is worth BILLIONS of dollars and shows up to the NFL Hall of Fame game, where he's being honored and will be inducted to the HOF Saturday, with a disaster of a haircut.

It's so bad that you think it's a joke at first, but the man obviously cares about appearances because you don't get that many facelifts without caring. The only reasonable explanation for that haircut is Raiders owner Mark Davis gave him some tips and pointers on cutting your own hair.

Getting back to it.

Let's start with NFL owner Steve Bisciotti who owns the Baltimore Ravens. Bisciotti has turned signing free agent QB Colin Kaepernick into a moral dilemma along the lines of Harry Truman dropping Fat Boy and Little Boy on WWII Japan. He asked for his fans to "pray for us" on whether to sign Kaepernick.

Growing up as a preacher's son, I believe in the power of prayer, but for this instance I'm going to call BS on Bisciotti. He's using prayer as a cover and I don't believe for one second that he honestly cares about the power of prayer. He's a coward trying to pull the okie-doke on all of us.

All of this Kaepernick drama boils down to cowardice. It's not an attempt to blackball a player because his social activism runs against the beliefs of NFL owners. Their only belief is $$$ and anything that threatens that scares them. That's why guys like Greg Hardy found a home after threatening to murder their significant others.

Kaepernick did not commit a crime but Bisciotti is acting like he beat his future wife or was found guilty of obstructing justice in a double-murder case. Both of which crimes were committed by Ravens players, the first being Ray Rice who was on video hitting his then fiancée. Bisciotti knew about it yet still defended Rice until the video became public, then he pretended to be shocked and released Rice.

Then there's Ray Lewis who was tried for a double-murder, given a plea deal and accepted a misdemeanor obstruction of justice. As you would guess Bisciotti was in Lewis' corner as well, even though Lewis knew what happened to the two men who were killed and the white suit he was wearing that night mysteriously disappeared.

By signing Kaepernick Bisciotti is worried that instead of making billions this year he's only going to make billions. Obviously, there would be upset fans and season ticket holders, but they'll get over it and if the team wins they'll get over it sooner.

We like to think of the NFL as a pure meritocracy, but in reality it's not because Bisciotti and a few other NFL owners are cowards. Kaepernick is at worst a high-end backup and at best he's a better version of Alex Smith.

There are a number of teams he could help out Jacksonville, Baltimore, Miami Chicago, Cleveland, both New York teams, and Jacksonville to name a few.

(Jacksonville would be the best spot for Kaep, good defense and all he has to do is manage the game. If I had one sports wish it would be to jettison Blake Bortles from the Jags. I just don't have it in me this season to watch him throw pick-6s or grounders to his receivers.)

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross does get exempt from the cowardice label, because last season as some owners were cracking down on their players kneeling during the national anthem. Ross did the opposite, he encouraged his team to kneel if they felt led to and also ensured them the organization would have their back. He also voted against the Raiders move to Las Vegas because as he said it best, "If you own a team, you should have the deep pockets to deliver. You need some public money for infrastructure and things like that. But with the costs of stadiums today, our country can't afford to really put all of the money in that kind of place."

One word describes Ross the best, hero.

In terms of social activism, I don't consider Kaepernick on the level of Bill Russel or Muhammad Ali. He's your run-of-the-mill activist makes a good point here and there, but tends to have too many radical beliefs, i.e. praising Fidel Castro. Not seeing eye-to-eye with Kaepernick shouldn't keep him from a job, his numbers are that of serviceable QB and he belongs on the football field.

You know something, I going to have to apologize to Bisciotti about him using prayer as a sham. Because he's right and his prayer has been answered through me. Stop being a coward and sign Colin Kaepernick.

Moving on from one coward we go to another coward in Roger Goodell.

I really do miss the days of Goodell hiding in his office and limiting his public interaction. But now that he's emerged from his fallout shelter, he has resumed spewing garbage all over the place.

It started with the CTE study released last week that found out of 111 NFL players 110 of them were positive for CTE.

Rather than accept the findings and say they're finally committed to solving the CTE problem. The NFL then went on the defense with a press release that didn't deny, but also did not accept the results.

Goodell, like the obedient dog he his, continued the defense this week when he was asked directly about the study. He gave this answer with a little stank on it,

"The average NFL player lives five years longer than you, so their lifespan is actually longer and healthier."

While this might be true, it is wildly dishonest and downright pathetic that Goodell got so self-righteous in his response. The quality of life is the key here, if a player can barely remembers who they are and/or is fighting severe depression along with suicidal thoughts at a higher rate than the average population. I'd say that's a drastic difference in quality of life between a former player and average person.

Answers like this is why I don't feel bad about the abuse Goodell takes from fans, players or the press. In fact, I enjoy it and I can't wait for him to go back to Foxboro on opening night. Watching Patriot fans boo him so loudly that it drowns out his voice or reading stories about how he gets irritated by the fans or NFL coaches wearing a Goodell clown shirt, courtesy of Barstool Sports, brings legitimate joy to my life.

I admit this is vindictive and callous on my part but with Goodell, who treats all of us, fans and players alike, as if we're idiots and is slowly pushing the best athletes toward the basketball or baseball, I think it's a wash.

Goodell is the Marco Rubio of NFL commissioners, no individual independence or identity just a husk of a human being that has the delusional thought that he's making a positive difference.

Now who is ready for some football!?