Following the NFL’s decision to move the Vikings-Eagles game from Sunday night to Tuesday because of bad weather in the Philadelphia area, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (D) said that we’ve become a nation of wusses.
From ESPN.com:
“It goes against everything that football is all about,” Rendell said Monday on radio station 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia.
“My biggest beef is that this is part of what’s happened in this country,” Rendell said. “I think we’ve become wussies.”
“We’ve become a nation of wusses. The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything,” Rendell added. “If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down.”
Trick question, because China doesn’t have football. So take that, Governor.
While I agree the game should have never been rescheduled, Rendell is going a tad overboard here. The game wasn’t moved because the league doesn’t want its players playing in snow. It was moved because there was some concern for the fans either driving or leaving the game in a blizzard.
The NFL made a quick decision regarding fans’ safety and therefore the game was shifted to Tuesday. I don’t think we need to turn this into a political discussion about how the Chinese are so much far advanced than we are based on this. (After all, there are better examples of that fact – zing!)
I’ve lived in the Midwest my entire life. I’ve seen snow, I’ve driven in blizzards and I’ve had to deal with some horrendous weather. I do agree that many people freak out for no reason as soon as bad weather hits. But maybe shifting the game to Tuesday will cause fewer incidents and hopefully avoid accidents. I get that accidents happen in all weather, but maybe the NFL avoided an unnecessary risk by playing the game tonight.
Are we a nation of wusses because of that? I don’t think so.
