Logo
NFLNFL

I’m with you. I also sit and watch high-stakes football games increasingly determined and degraded by mindless, selfish post-play misconduct and say to myself, “Where are the coaches? How do they allow such unfathomably stupid, preventable things?”

But just who are the coaches?

It’s unlikely any of the NFL’s pregame TV shows, today and tonight, will spend much time on this matter, or that NBC’s Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, during tonight’s Steelers-Chiefs, will treat it with more than a brief mention, but Steelers linebackers coach Joey Porter is more likely the kind to inspire his charges to commit misconduct penalties — and to be ejected, too — than to dissuade them from misconduct on behalf of the greater good of the team, its goals and its fans.

Last Sunday, after the Steelers’ playoff win, Porter, 39 and a college man — Colorado State — was arrested, charged with aggravated assault against a police office after a physical hassle with a bouncer who denied him entrance to a Pittsburgh bar, sometime after midnight.

According to the police report, the bouncer refused Porter entry because he previously had been disruptive in the bar, threatening to kill that same bouncer.

Shortly before 2 a.m., Monday, Porter was additionally charged with simple assault, resisting arrest, defiant trespass, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness. All but the disorderly conduct and public drunkenness charges were dropped, and following an “issued statement” of deep regret, Porter will be coaching tonight.

Last season, at this time, Porter, as a Steelers coach, came on to the field to further fuel the prison-riot conditions that had degenerated the Steelers-Bengals playoff game to one that was unrecognizable as organized, professional sport.

And so right there on the field, exchanging shoves and threats with two of the NFL’s worst reprobates — Pacman Jones and Vontaze Burfict, both also college men (WVU and Arizona State, respectively) — was a Steelers coach.

The NFL quietly fined Porter $10,000 when it should have noisily suspended him for several games. But improving, let alone protecting, the good and welfare of the game apparently doesn’t fall under Roger Goodell’s terms of engagement.

As for Coach Porter, the accomplished NFL linebacker, mostly with Pittsburgh, one would think that too many of his accomplishments would have disqualified him from coaching at any level.

2004: Ejected before the kickoff of a game against the Browns for fighting with Cleveland running back William Green.

2009: With Miami, suspended by his team for unspecified reasons. Voted by NFL players as among the dirtiest players in the league.

2010: With Arizona, arrested for DUI and assault on a police officer, though the charges later were dropped.

2012: Jailed for three days after writing a bad check to cover $70,000 in Nevada casino markers.

2013: Despite NFL salaries totaling $22 million, Pittsburgh media report the foreclosure of his $4 million Florida mansion.

And, though you’re unlikely to hear much about it on TV, today or tonight, such a résumé will not prevent one from becoming an NFL coach.

Kinda makes you wonder who, during the hiring process, finished second, behind Porter.

Crude radio talk in one year, out the other

You can’t stand in the way of inertia: WFAN’s/CBSSN’s “Boomer and Carton” simulcast, as heard last week, remains reliant on the sound of sustained gastric flatulence for hopeful laughs among those listening while being driven to junior high.

For all the shots Craig Carton and Weekday Boomer Esiason take at people — including Mike Francesa — their morning drive stock in trade remains low — the gratuitous put-down, toilet-talk and the rude, crude and lewd. They’re still eager to be heard as the Pee-Pee and Poo-Poo Show.

Chris ChristieAPChris ChristieAP

Carton’s no less eager to be heard as the slug who ambushed tennis star Jennifer Capriati with a question as to whether she engages in group sex, while Esiason’s even more eager to speak in dirty-little-boy radio “Morning Zoo” tongue — language he assiduously avoids when playing gentlemanly Weekend Boomer on CBS’s NFL studio show.

Of course, it likely helps regular contributor Chris Christie, the part-time Governor of New Jersey, to pretend he’s unfamiliar with that on-air conduct by the hosts, as they seem to save it for when he’s not with them.

Same went on with Don Imus’ big-shot semi-regular guests such as network newsmen Brian Williams and Bob Schieffer. When the Rutgers women’s basketball racial stuff hit the FAN, all those big shots ran for cover while pretending they never knew Imus & Co. had it in them.

Why use one word when 10 will do?

Imagine if today’s football announcers were assigned to write the bios on Hall of Fame induction plaques.

QB Fran Tarkenton was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986. His plaque reads, that he was known for “his scrambling style of play.”

Given today’s genuine gridiron pigskin gibberish, Tarkenton’s would read, “Often able to extend the play by running toward the edges and periphery, then into space, and eventually downhill to move the chains.”

While we’re at it, reader Mark Dantonio on “leveraging the football”:

“It’s what the worst kid in my neighborhood did when he said if we wanted to use his ball we had to let him play. No other use for this dumb phrase.”

Among the decisive factors in Clemson’s upset of Alabama for the national title, Monday, was a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against ’Bama DT Da’Ron Payne with 5:38 left, helping Clemson take a 28-24 lead. Still, it didn’t make most “significant moments” recaps, as if such penalties have become a given. And they have.

WNBA star Tamika Catchings has joined ESPN’s SEC Network as a game analyst. Man, I’m getting old. She recently retired after 15 pro seasons, and I covered her father, Harvey Catchings, when he played center for the Nets, in 1978. Nurse!

Here to work Wednesday’s Panthers-Islanders on MSG in recognition of his 50th anniversary calling NHL games — he was the first voice of the L.A. Kings in 1967 — Jiggs McDonald, at 78, was as on top of the play and its players as ever; just fabulous.

Adam “Snacks” Geller, popular stage manager and a fun-target on YES’s Nets’ telecasts for 15 years, died last week of colon cancer. He was, good grief, 39, and leaves his wife, Deb, and year-old daughter.

Reader Bob Alsick: “Can you tell me how the NCAA will punish Rutgers’ football program? It’s not as if it can take away any wins.” My understanding, Bob, is the NCAA will reduce the number of “hostesses” RU can assign to each visiting recruit.

Comments
anonymous profile image
Powered by RoundtableBuilt on infrastructure designed for real-time media. Learn more at RTB.io.© Roundtable 2026. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy