By Gary Norris Gray, Staff Reporter

NOTE: This article was written before the start of the 2015 NFL season.

OAKLAND — With the recent episodes at Foxboro (Deflategate), Glendale (Super Bowl), and New York City (League Offices) we all need to start thinking about a national protest against the National Football League for their incompetence. This is not the World Wrestling Federation, this is professional football and we all know how the WWF winners and losers are scripted.

As a child of the 1960′s, Sunday afternoon explosion of professional football was a joy to watch. The (AFL) American Football League threw the ball all over the field and young African Americans were the stars of the show unlike the stogie (NFL) National Football League.

The current events on and off the field over the past 10 years are getting out of hand and have turned many football fans sour.

African American males are the product for the NFL but African American men are not the primary beneficiaries of the National Football League. This has to change.

My Indigenous-Native American-First Nation Brothers and Sisters are still being mocked and disrespected by two NFL Team Mascots and one disgusting name. The Washington Redskins and the Kansas City Chiefs must change their names.

The National Football League should strive to have an increase of African American ownership, coaches, fitness instructors, and front office executives.

The Gray Leopard Cove- along with the staff of the Black Athlete Sports Network would encourage all professional football fans to stop watching the game, or purchasing football gear in 2015. A message must be sent that we will no longer accept pro football as usual.

IT IS TIME !!!!

Here are the Issues

1. The very strange ending to the last Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona with the Seattle Seahawks knocking at the doorsteps of the New England goal-line. Just 58 seconds left from victory. The Seahawks had the ball on the one yard line, WITH ALL THREE TIME OUTS LEFT. Seattle had the best quarterback in the league Russell Wilson and Marshawn (I’M JUST HERE NOT TO GET FINED) Lynch the best running back-. How could the Aqua Birds lose?

The National Football League could not have Mr. Lynch scoring the winning touchdown and becoming the Most Valuable Player. The League could not have Russell Wilson winning two Super Bowls back to back which would guarantee that number three, THE FIELD GENERAL would walk into the Hall of Fame. Wilson would be the first African American quarterback to do so.

2. The three missed calls in last year’s Lions-Cowboy playoff game in Detroit. It would have been great to see a new team in the playoffs instead America’s team the Dallas Cowboys moved on. This was a marketing issue for the NFL and it should have been a game issue and this is why the League is flailing.

3. The League knew about the concussion issue since 1970 but it keeps growing year after year.

4. The treatment of the old timers, the veterans, could be described in one word, disgraceful. The League continues to try to deny their medical benefits hoping these great players that made the game will die first.

5. Commissioner Roger Goodell’s treatment of Black players compared to whites doubling the time suspended for the same offense. This is very troubling.

6. The immediate and indefinite suspension of Mike Vick five years ago without police reports, without League reports or interviews. While it took 6 to 8 months to suspend Captain America Tom Brady ON A FOOTBALL ISSUE. Brady will not miss a game in 2015. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for most African Americans.

7. Mr. Goodell’s hammer came down hard on The NON-FOOTBALL ISSUES, for example the 2014 suspensions of Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson (a year) and Baltimore Raven running back Ray Rice (4 games). African American fans were asking what happened to fair and equal justice.

So before anybody gets it twisted I do not condone domestic violence or violence against children. This too had racial overtones.

8. The Philadelphia Eagles and Riley Thomas Cooper using the N-Word at a summer concert. Mr. Cooper did not get suspended. African Americans in the tri-state area complained, only then did Mr. Cooper get fined BY THE EAGLES ORGANIZATION-NOT THE NFL. The Eagles sent him to anger management class. After that the organization put Mr. Cooper’s face on their 2015 team calendar, the month of February. BLACK HISTORY MONTH, really?

Wish I could be a fly on the wall of the Eagles locker-room and listen to the conversations in 2015.

9. The Untouchables- New England-Tom Brady, Green Bay-Aaron Rogers, Atlanta-Matt Ryan, All of these gentlemen are fine quarterbacks but there is a double standard. If any defensive player tackles any one of these three quarterbacks it better be clean hit because a referees flag will be flying. If Tom Brady is breathed on, a flag comes out for roughing the passer. UNTOUCHABLES…

10. The Heir Apparent- Indianapolis Colts- Andrew Luck- Mr. Luck has been nominated, promoted, or pushed to take the mantle of Brady, Rogers, and Ryan. Andrew Luck has become “The Great White Hope” to carry the torch into the next decade. Andrew Luck currently plays in a system that fits him and he still makes mistakes. Throwing into zone coverage will not serve you well and Mr. Luck does this often.

11. The Targets- Carolina-Cam Newton, San Francisco-Colin Kaepernick, Washington Robert Griffin III, and Russell Wilson but they can’t catch the Seattle Seahawk, Wilson baseball instincts kick in when an opposing linemen has a beat on him. Wilson will go into a baseball slide something other option quarterbacks need to learn.

This rule change restricted the mobile option running quarterback. This was engineered by Jeff Fisher. Once you’re outside of the pocket its target practice and that quarterback became a running back and are fair game.

12. The names of the Washington Football Club and the Kansas City Football team must be changed to avoid the continuing racial slurs and bigotry against Native Americans.

13. Minority ownership has not improved.

14. Minority coaching staff remains stagnant the past 15 years.

15. The Black quarterback issue – It should be best man plays the position. Miami, Chicago, Jacksonville, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, needs to be reminded. It can be done, as the Buffalo Bills will start Tyrod Taylor in 2015.

16. Ticket prices have gone through the roof and the average fan cannot attend a game without mortgaging their house or giving away their first born child. A family of four cannot attend National Football League games.

17. The issue of gambling. Fantasy Leagues are springing up all over the country. It’s not about your team winning on Sunday, it is now about player’s statistics. This could be the back-breaker.

We have to look at the big picture my brothers and sisters, stop spending our hard earned dollars on an industry that does not care about African Americans. Money becomes more important than humans that is a path to destruction, Just as Major League Baseball about the Drug issue in the 1980′s.

THE ONLY WAY TO HURT THIS MONSTER IS THE POCKET BOOK

IT IS TIME!!!! FOR A NATIONAL BOYCOTT IN 2015

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

Brother Gary Norris Gray

Writer, Author, Historian. Gibbs Magazine-Oakland, California and New England Informer- Boston Mass. THE GRAYLINE:- The Analects of A Black Disabled Man, The Gray Leopard Cove, Soul Tree Radio In The Raw, and The Batchelor Pad Network on Blogtalkradio.com Disabled Community Activist. Email at garyngray@blackathlete.com

Garynorrisgray@Wordpress.com

©Copyrighted Gary Norris Gray @ Gray Leopard Prod.