Age-Old Foes

President of the United States, Donald Trump, criticised the National Football League (NFL) and drew the ire of its players recently over his comments on players not standing for the national anthem.

His deputy, Vice-President Mike Pence, even left the game between the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers early to protest against the players' kneeling during the national anthem. Some called it a publicity stunt which stole the limelight away from Peyton Manning, whose number was retired by the Colts during the half-time ceremony of that game.

Yours Truly is not going to talk politics here. He just wants to remind the readers of some major issues between Trump and the NFL in the past.

Trump was the majority owner of New Jersey Generals, a team in the United States Football League (USFL) founded in the early eighties.

Initially, the USFL wanted to fill the gaps of the NFL by playing its games in spring and summer, and in cities that did not have NFL teams.

And because the USFL did not have a hard salary cap, it managed to capture many players who would eventually be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, such as Reggie White and Jim Kelly.

Later on, however, they decided to move its schedule to autumn (allegedly at the urging of Trump) which meant their games would be in direct competition against the NFL games. Soon, they found themselves struggling to survive against the more well-established counterpart.

Then they decided to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL for their monopoly.

Back in the late 1960s, there was another upstart league, the American Football League (AFL) which managed to eventually merge with the NFL. Now most of the teams in the American Football Conference (AFC) of the NFL can trace their roots to the AFL days.

Many thought that the USFL probably wanted a merger too, which was the real aim behind their lawsuit.

When the case went to court, the USFL actually won. And they also got triple the damage from the NFL under anti-trust laws.

But there was one problem: The damage awarded by the court was only US$1.

ONE UNITED STATES DOLLAR.

And under anti-trust laws, they got three times of that. It meant that the USFL was awarded US$3.

THREE UNITED STATES DOLLARS.

Yours Truly is not going into the specifics behind the judgement. Eventually, the USFL received the award (US$3.76 in cheque in 1990, adjusted due to inflation), but folded soon afterwards due to huge financial losses.

And none of the teams managed to join the NFL, unlike those in the AFL.

And you can just imagine how pissed the owners of USFL teams were, or are, with the NFL in that pyrrhic victory.

Giant-Normous Problems for New York

As a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, Yours Truly always wishes ill on their hated rivals, especially those in the NFC East like the New York Giants and company.

Yet what transpired on Sunday made Yours Truly sick and feel for the luckless Giants.

For once, Yours Truly decided to watch a game between two winless teams, the Giants and the San Diego, oops, Los Angeles Chargers live on TV.

It was a snoozefest which clearly showed why these two teams were winless. They were just not very good. But then, fate decided to add some spice into this dreadful game.

Late in the first half, wide receivers Sterling Shepard and Brandon Marshall both suffered left ankle injuries ON THE SAME DRIVE and had to leave the game.

As a Cowboys homie, Yours Truly wondered if that would mean former-Cowboy Dwayne Harris would play more snaps as a wide receiver in addition to a kick-returner. Alas, just as Yours Truly went back to his seat after the halftime break, he learned that Harris had broken his left foot during the second-half kick-off.

Well, at least they still had all-world wideout Odell Beckham Jr. in the fold. But NFL does really stand for Not For Long, as OBJ's left foot was caught under a defender while trying to catch a pass from Eli Manning in the fourth quarter. When the Chargers defenders frantically called for medics on the field and when a tearful OBJ had to be carted off, it meant that the Giants had lost four of their top five receivers that very day.

(And Yours Truly is sure that you can't name the lone-surviving wideout among their top five. See answer below.)

For the Giants, the bad news was confirmed after the game in which they lost 22-27 to remain winless. OBJ, Marshall and Harris are all out for the rest of the season after season-ending surgeries. While Shepard (a player Yours Truly wanted the Cowboys to draft last year) escaped serious injuries, he would likely miss a couple of games down the road.

Before the game, critics lamented the Giants for their woeful running game. Well, at least they do have some healthy bodies like Orleans Darkwa (who ran well in the Chargers game), Paul Perkins and Wayne Gallman who may one day emerge as a competent runner.

But for wide receivers, the Giants simply don't have enough healthy bodies just to line up properly. Perhaps they will have to rely strongly on 13 personnel (1 running back and 3 tight ends) for the rest of the season.

Or they will have to lure Victor Cruz and his bad knees out of retirement?

(Answer to the trivial question: Roger Lewis.)