ESPN star Michael Wilbon is publicly calling out the NFL.
Ahead of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, there's ongoing talk about potential changes to the league, including moving to an 18-game schedule. There are more games during the week, too, with games happening on Black Friday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and more.
With all of these changes, the NFL is being called out, as many are wondering if they are putting player safety at the forefront.
Wilbon is among those.
© Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images.
Wilbon is publicly accusing the NFL of lying.
“No league lies publicly like the NFL,” he said on 'First Take' this week.
“No entity in this country lies as thoroughly, as convincingly, and as successfully as the NFL to try to sell, ‘We care about health and player safety.’ They do not … It’s a lie. It’s a fraud. It’s the NFL, and people aren’t going to call them out on it. Usually, people just want their football, and whatever the NFL is selling, we as a culture will buy it.”
Wilbon is tired of hearing that the NFL cares about player safety.
“Don’t ever say to my face if you’re an NFL executive or a club executive, ‘Oh, we care about health and player safety. You do not,” Wilbon said.
“Just be honest about it,” the Pardon the Interruption co-host continued. “I had a journalism professor that said, ‘Say what you mean and mean what you say.’ The NFL doesn’t care about player safety. So half those things people pointed out are just like, OK, this is a great shock to the system. And so the NFL should make all the money in the world for every network, streaming service, everything else, but NIL is the devil? Stop.”
Wilbon certainly has a lot of people on his side.
The NFL, though, is too big to care at this point.
