I Think I May Be In The Bargaining Stage - A Ranting Essay

The denial happened immediately and was gone before I knew it. As I stared at the big screen from my seats, I thought that surely a flag was coming. “Calm down,” I told my sister next to me “they have to talk about this.”. And then BAM, I was in the anger phase. I’m still in the angry phase, mixed in with what felt like the 4th phase of grief, which is depression. I don’t think those will ever go away.

This week has been lived in a funk. Don’t get me wrong, I went on living my life. I keep going to work, and I come home to care of my kids and my wife. But every now and then, I look at my phone. Whether it be Facebook, message boards, or the Times Pic online, I look down and there it is. Another clip, another article, another billboard, another lawsuit. It still happened. We still aren’t going to Atlanta. I’m mad again.

Here is where I think the bargaining phase is coming in. We still haven’t heard from Goodell, the NFL has issued no statements, and quite frankly, I don’t care. I don’t expect them to make it right. I don’t think they are going to give us draft picks or cap relief, and I certainly don’t think the rematch is going to happen. We can’t expect them to give it to us. We need to take revenge, and we need to do it within their rules. It will have to be bought into from the top down. From Gayle down to the fans. Here is what we do…

First and foremost, we HAVE to win the Super Bowl next year. We need players to move money in their contracts back a year or two. Not just one or two players, but anyone who intends to see this through. Hit the free agency market with a fury. One-year rentals galore. Fill the few holes this team has with studs. Loomis can make it work with his crazy money magic. We need to crush teams. Leave no doubt. All in. Drew rides off into the sunset with a Lombardi in each hand.

Then comes the next year. The tank. Tanking has been around in the NFL for a long time. Bad teams have long mortgaged the present for the future, but it has never been done by a good team before. We would have the infrastructure to be a good team, for a long time. Just not this year. We don’t want to be good this year. We need a different kind of one-year rentals now. We need the cheapest players available who have no other options. Literally off the street. We are going to need that money in 2021 anyway.

I want us to tank so blatantly that Goodell knows it’s happening, and there is nothing he could do about it. I want the message to be after every loss, this is what we think of your league, that it’s a joke. Never punt, onside kicks every time, trick plays out the wazoo. I want Taysom Hill yelling at the cameras, “Are you not entertained???”. The fans, in a way that only New Orleanians can, can embrace each loss as a celebration in a collective biting of the thumb to Goodell and the NFL.

And then, with a schedule full of bottom feeders, and our core of champions still around. The Trevor Lawrence era begins...

ETA:
TL:DR