Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott made a bad analogy just before kickoff on a snow-covered field in western New York, by saying that playing football in the snow is somehow just like our soldiers fighting in a war.
When a CBS sideline reporter interviewed the coach as the snow fell around them, McDermott was asked how the team prepares itself to play in a snowstorm. The coach then somewhat absurdly replied, “You never know what the conditions are, what you’re going to get, uh, no different than our military people in terms of what they go through. We have to perform just like they do.”
David Hookstead of The Smoke Room was aghast. “He literally said the conditions were ‘no different’ from what the military goes through,” Hookstead scoffed.
Playing football in the snow is a challenge, there is no doubt, but it is the sort of thing that players will smile about when they recall the game years from now. They’ll get a slap on the back and be reminded, “remember that time you played in a snowstorm? So, cool.”
But, one would think being sent into a war zone and “having to perform” as death-dealing bullets, rockets, and IEDs are going off all around you is just a bit different than playing a kid’s game in the snow. Being forced to play football in Orchard Park, Buffalo’s New Era Field is probably a bit less dangerous than being sent to a war zone in Iraq or Afghanistan, to be sure.
Coach McDermott’s hyperbole was quite unfortunate. And this quip comes from an NFL that recently noted it will be taking away the millions it was donating to help military families only to redirect that spending to so-called “social justice” and Black Lives Matter causes to placate players who protest against the country during the playing of the national anthem.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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