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The Real Life Soap Opera of PLAYMAKERS

© Roy Pickering

Apparently not satisfied with the sole task of providing professional football to the masses for a hefty profit, the NFL seems to want in on the business of censorship. The voice they wish to muffle belongs to their strongest partner, the ESPN network. ESPN's sin is having branched out from strictly sports broadcasting and commentary, into the arena of entertainment. What does a network that specializes in sports choose to put on the air when it wants to create its first fictional program? Why of course, they present a show that's set in the world of sports, specifically, professional football.

The show "Playmakers" does not use the names or uniforms of actual NFL teams. Basically, it's a TV series version of Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday", without the NFL player cameos (not that they haven't begged in) and star power of Al Pacino doing his best Bill Parcells impersonation. If you think that movie went over the top, you'll surely feel that "Playmakers" goes so high that it has reached another galaxy. Everything that can go wrong in the world of football, does go wrong on this show. There is scarcely a redeemable character to be found. Players, coaches and owners screw up big time on just about an hourly basis. And this is all on a single team. Just about every controversy that can be conceived, or to be more accurate, borrowed from real life headlines, is compressed into one locker room. Such a team in real life would have a real tough time making it on to the field, much less winning any games.

"Playmakers" is a guilty pleasure for people who like football with some "Days of Our Lives" type plots thrown in. Or is it the other way around? To those of us without a vested interest, the answer doesn't much matter. To the higher ups in the National Football League, the content of "Playmakers" is a very serious issue indeed.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, NFL Players Association chief Gene Upshaw, and team owners such as Jeffrey Lurie (Philadelphia Eagles) have made it quite clear that they aren't fans of the show, whether or not they've actually seen it. They feel it misrepresents the sport, and of course, they're right. "Playmakers" is an extremely one sided view of professional football players, much the same as United Way commercials are. The typical NFL player is not a wife beating, crack smoking, steroid taking thug who also happens to either be a closet homosexual, or else a rabid homophobe. Yet it's equally valid that the typical player does not spend every moment off the field visiting the sick, giving guidance to school children, and feeding the needy. In reality, there are some really solid citizens who play in the NFL, a handful of rather shady individuals, and the vast majority are probably much like you and I, neither Mother Teresa nor Jack the Ripper, but somewhere in between. "Playmakers" does not claim to be documentary. It does not pretend to be in-depth journalism on display. The show is a far fetched drama intended for an adult audience capable of differentiating between reality and fantasy. Yet for some reason, it has NFL representatives steaming mad.