NFL On Saturdays? ‘I Drink Your Milkshake’
FRISCO - "There Will Be Blood'' is a modern cinematic masterpiece, the 2007 hit taking us to a turn-of-the-century place when America seemed to teeter between the worship of religion and the worship of capitalism. The movie reaches a crescendo when the megalomaniacal oil man Daniel Plainview cruelly explains to Eli Sunday that the corrupt preacher's tract of land - which sits in the middle of Plainview's vast acreage - is dry of liquid gold.
"I drink your milkshake!'' Daniel Day-Lewis' Plainview explains, pantomiming the use of an imaginary straw to detail how his oil-rig piping simply went down and under the land he did not own, illicitly sucking from it its "blood.'' "I drink it up!''
Football is presently at a "teeter'' point as well, the NFL and NCAA (like most of the rest of us) laboring to balance protection against COVID-19 with the lost revenue of cancellations. To that end, the NCAA is considering the cancellation of college football in 2020 ... and the NFL is therefore considering filling the void by moving some of its games to Saturdays.
This is no "act of kindness'' on the part of the NFL. There is an entertainment void to fill, yes. But more, there is a revenue stream - "oil under Preacher Eli's tract,'' so to speak - to be grabbed.
The NFL and college football have long harbored a rather cozy back-scratch arrangement that allows the "amateurs'' to be funneled to the pros via a feeder program. In theory, the NFL needs college football to exist for that reason - which is why for most of the history of the relationship, the NFL has treated Saturdays as the NCAA's sacred ground.
I wonder, though, what might happen if it occurs to the NFL that it's been too magnanimous in its hands-off-Saturday approach. Are Saturdays really reserved for the colleges? The NFL made its official crawl toward that position in 1972, with Saturday games only staged late in the season, when they were unlikely to conflict with the NCAA's marquee games.
And why did the NFL create the policy? To forge a nice working relationship with the colleges, yes. But also because there was fertile weekend ground to be plowed.
It can be argued that the symbiotic relationship between the two levels of football will cause the Saturday/Sunday separation to reappear once COVID-19 disappears. Ah, but that taste for "blood.'' ...
Once upon a time, college football essentially had an understanding high school football that it wouldn't play on Fridays. You know, "symbiotic relationship,'' and all of that. But then the NCAA realized the TV money that was available (with ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU opening up the wallet) by expanding its calendar ...
And voila, we now have college football on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and WhatEverDaysSomebodyWillPayForThemDays.
There is literally an act of Congress meant to protect the NCAA's Saturdays from being gobbled up by the NFL's 32 Daniel Plainviews. So maybe the NFL will only suck from the NCAA's "tract'' for one season before returning it.
Indeed, I defer to the college/pro knowledge of colleagues like 105.3 The Fan's Bryant Broaddus and SI.com's own Albert Breer, an astute mind who insists we can "take to the bank'' the idea that the NFL will continue to respect the "Golden Goose'' nature of its relationship with the NCAA.
But I'm unwilling to dismiss the possibility of a more "There Will Be Blood''-like crescendo to this story, a modern story in which we all teeter between the worship of health and the worship of capitalism. You don't get to be a billionaire without being a bit of a financial vulture, without occasionally stepping on toes.
What if the NFL experiences a season without its NCAA little brother? The Scouting Combine will trudge on. The 2021 NFL Draft will trudge on.
But maybe the need to be quite so "symbiotic'' will not.
The NFL on Saturdays will be a major oil strike. A gusher.
"I am the third revelation!'' barks Plainview, both mocking the false prophet Eli's own lie and believing it about himself. "I am the third revelation!''
There is revenue to be won and lost. There is blood and oil to be won and lost. Be careful here, NCAA ... lest your big brother "Drink your milkshake.''
