Baltimore's Ravens and Orioles had been fighting over use of their respective home ballparks on the night of Thu 5 Sep. The two teams don't even share a stadium, but they do share a parking lot. Apparently that lot isn't big enough to hold both sets of fans, and surprise of surprises, the Super Bowl champs came out on the short end. It's the Ravens who will be hitting the road for their opener.

 

Of course, there was a solution. The Ravens' could have moved their opener to Wednesday night, but Goodell said they couldn't do that because it's a Jewish high holiday.

 

Sound reasonable? No. Since when does a league that plays the bulk of its games on Sunday and doesn't care if a playoff game falls on Christmas care about working its schedule around religion? And the NFL is an equal-opporunity non-sectarian. It scheduled games on Rosh Hashanah as recently as last season. 

 

So once again, to the NFL, another issue was not about the fans, the game, or the players. It's all about Goodell trying to throw his weight around.  

 

We all know the Super Bowl champs will get their chance to play at home in front of their fans on another day. This is one mountain that got pounded back down into a molehill, and the little girl inside of me is proud of the City of Baltimore for doing it. On this issue, at least, it was the big bully who finally got pushed in the sandbox for a change.