Free Republic

The Cleveland Browns got screwed by a fumble call, when the ball was already in the possession of Duke Johnson and he stood up, while players fought for something else in a pile. To most rational people who can watch something with their own eyes, that’s what happened. However, rather than just acknowledge the mistake and move on (something that has happened many times in the past), the NFL is bizarrely digging its heels in on this one.

Research conducted on behalf of SportsBusiness Daily has found unprecedented double-digit audience declines for NFL games so far this season. According to research firm CivicScience, NBC’s Sunday Night Football — the highest rated prime-time program for the last five years — has seen its average audience drop 10 percent so far this year after four games. Viewership of the NFL’s widely dispersed Thursday night games has dropped 15 percent. And ESPN’s Monday Night Football is down 19 percent. It’s not fringe science — culling Nielsen data, Sports Media Watch has the NFL’s ratings pretty much down across the board through...

NFL Live Thread Week Five Thursday, Oct. 6 8:25 p.m. ET Cardinals at 49ers Sunday, Oct. 9 1 p.m. ET Patriots at Browns 1 p.m. ET Eagles at Lions 1 p.m. ET Bears at Colts 1 p.m. ET Titans at Dolphins 1 p.m. ET Redskins at Ravens 1 p.m. ET Texans at Vikings 1 p.m. ET Jets at Steelers 4:05 p.m. ET Falcons at Broncos 4:25 p.m. ET Bengals at Cowboys 4:25 p.m. ET Bills at Rams 4:25 p.m. ET Chargers at Raiders 8:30 p.m. ET Giants at Packers Monday, Oct. 10 8:30 p.m. ET Buccaneers at Panthers Bye week:...

Ratings for National Football League (NFL) games are on the decline through the first four weeks of the 2016 season … with some blaming the #BlackLivesMatter protests initiated by San Francisco 49ers’ backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Sunday night’s matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers drew just 16.7 million viewers – the lowest primetime audience of the year.That’s bad … but it’s even worse when you consider the previous three installments of Sunday Night Football also drew audiences that were smaller than last year by an average of 11.6 percent. Thursday Night Football on the NFL Network is...

Fun chase on the field during the game. Watch the All Lives Matter supporter in Gorilla suit make a fool of the NFL unpatriotic BLM fools! Lions vs. Bears Gorilla wins!

A fan disrupted the Bears/Lions game on Sunday when he ran out on the field wearing a full gorilla costume and a shirt that read "All Lives Matter" on the front and "Put The Guns Down" on the back. He was tackled, removed from the game and turned over to authorities.

In a new segment for his weekly series with The Player's Tribune, Seahawks' cornerback Richard Sherman appears in a four-minute video on how the NFL treats its players. He says that the league sees them like race cars, doing just enough to keep them in good shape to perform, then dropping them once they're no longer on a roster.

Traditionally the most prominent women in NFL were the cheerleaders but the game's top brass have launched an initiative to hire more women to be coaches, officials and scouts.  The NFL will hold its first job fair specifically for women, in Orlando, Florida, in January, just before the Super Bowl.

Fewer people are watching the NFL on TV, and no one really knows why. The NFL Players Association admits that the trend is an obvious concern. The league has kept quiet, likely fearful that talking about the situation would lend credence to the dynamic, possibly causing other fans who are still watching the games to say, “Maybe I should stop, too.” The decline has become a mystery, for the media and surely for the NFL.

NFL Week Four Thursday, Sept. 29 8:25 p.m. ET Dolphins at Bengals Sunday, Oct. 2 9:30 a.m. ET Colts at Jaguars 1 p.m. ET Titans at Texans 1 p.m. ET Browns at Redskins 1 p.m. ET Seahawks at Jets 1 p.m. ET Bills at Patriots 1 p.m. ET Panthers at Falcons 1 p.m. ET Raiders at Ravens 1 p.m. ET Lions at Bears 4:05 p.m. ET Broncos at Buccaneers 4:25 p.m. ET Rams at Cardinals 4:25 p.m. ET Saints at Chargers 4:25 p.m. ET Cowboys at 49ers 8:30 p.m. ET Chiefs at Steelers Monday, Oct. 3 8:30 p.m. ET Giants...

Chicago Bears last night drew in 18.62 million viewers, scoring a 6.8/21 rating in the 18-49 demographic, the group most coveted by advertisers. That marks a fall from last week’s 7.4 rating in the 18-49 demo. Last night’s game also scored a 12.9/21 in Nielsen’s metered-market rating, a decline from last week’s 13.7/23.

This is a list of current NFL sponsors along with contact information for most of them. I will complete the missing info soon. If you are upset about the disrespect some NFL players have been showing toward our flag and the support they've gotten from their teams and the NFL itself, you can contact their sponsors and let them know how you feel.

Through the first two weeks of the regular season, the league's premiere game, NBC's "Sunday Night Football," is down 12% in viewership compared to last year; ESPN's big game, "Monday Night Football," is also down 12%; and CBS' first "Thursday Night Football" game fell a whopping 26%, according to Nielsen data.

I was a police officer for 36 years. Prior to being a police officer I served six years in the U.S. Air Force, four on active duty and two in the reserves. Before that, my fondest memories, while growing up, are of going to the VFW with my dad on Friday night for their fish fry or clam bake. When I was in high school I played on that VFW Post’s Drum & Bugle Corps. My Dad served in the Merchant Marine during WW II, and recounted having been torpedoed once while on a North Atlantic convoy. All of my...

The United States of America, your community, your state, our nation—faces becoming a “Throw Away Country.” While San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick created the latest sensation by dishonoring our flag, our military men and women who fought and died to make this a free country, and our national anthem—he represents a rip tide of angry, misguided and anti-American citizens or non-citizens growing in strength and numbers daily. If we celebrate another 10 million or 50 million Colin Kaepernicks, will we survive? In the past month, high school students disgraced our national anthem by kneeling in irreverence and protest against our...

---SNIP--- Eagles safety Jenkins, 28, plans to continue his protest Sunday when his team faces the visiting Steelers. Regardless of heated, visceral reaction from some fans, he said he feels the issue of racial inequality is too important for him to be silent.

Colin Kaepernick has yet to throw a regular-season pass, but the 49ers' backup quarterback's decision to kneel during the national anthem to protest social inequality has made an impact that extends well beyond a football game. As Kaepernick continues to protest, he has been joined by other NFL players, and athletes -- both professional and amateur -- in other sports. It has become a divisive topic nationally, especially in light of recent shootings of African-American men by police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina. On Friday night, Kaepernick was in Oakland at Castlemont High School, where he...

Primetime ratings for the opening weekend of the 2016 NFL season were not kind. Not only were they down across almost the entire board, Monday Night Football‘s numbers showed signs that last season’s slide might be continuing. MNF averaged an 8.1 rating for the 2015 season while garnering an average viewership of 12.9 million, down two percent and three percent, respectively. In Week 1 of the 2016 season, the early game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins was the least watched MNF game since 2012 (7.7 rating, 13.0 million viewers), while the San Francisco 49ers – Los Angeles Rams...

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman did not take questions from reporters on Wednesday during his media session, instead reading a statement that said the message of NFL players’ protests during the national anthem has been lost.

The NFL this season has 32 league-wide category sponsors, including new brands in the auto and yogurt categories. Hyundai this season begins a four-year deal with the league. The automaker replaces GM, which had been the NFL’s official auto brand since ’01. Dannon, which began running Super Bowl spots in ’12, begins the first year of its league-wide deal after signing on in July '14. NFL corporate partnership benefits vary from deal to deal, but they typically include category exclusivity, use of league marks for advertising and promotional purposes, event signage, media exposure through radio, print and TV ads, as...