Roger Goodell

A pair of announcements by the National Football League in collaboration with Washington, DC has local citizens more excited than ever about football’s future in the capital city – but it’s also attracting opposition that stands to create a YIMBY versus NIMBY showdown on the left on the biggest national stage.  For YIMBY futurists on the left, whether you’re talking about Ezra Klein’s and Derek Thompson’s abundance agenda or Matt Yglesias’s dreams of a billion Americans, the possibility on offer by the NFL and the Washington Commanders seems ideal to achieve great things for the city.

The hapless Washington Commanders can’t do anything right. And I do mean anything. In September, a first-time Washington Commanders season ticket holder won more than $14,000 in a charitable raffle. After about six weeks of pestering the franchise, he finally received the check. It bounced. Of course, Washington’s football team — whose new name I can hardly muster the energy to speak, let alone write — is having yet another lackluster year on the gridiron. The team enjoys a miserable, if predictable, losing record. Coach Ron Rivera, who all things being equal is better than many of his predecessors, earlier this month seemed to throw shade at underperforming (and now injured) quarterback Carson Wentz.

Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden resigned Monday after insensitive emails he'd sent a decade ago were leaked to the media, gifting us the latest example of woke mob hypocrisy. Gruden's emails were admittedly, um, not great. He said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was a 'faggot’, called gay NFL players 'queers’ and said that NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith had 'lips the size of Michelin tires’. Gruden claims that last comment was not about race, but rather the fact that he has always referred to liars as having 'rubber lips’. Curious. There were other Gruden emails leaked to the media that weren't so bad, but they still signaled to the left that he is not on their team and thus not worthy of defense.