ESPN Sports Look With Roy Firestone (Charlie Jones NBC Sports) Talks NFL Violence (December 16,1986)

oh come on what is happening in the national football league is that otis wilson yeah otis wilson after what happened last week he ought to be thrown out of the ball again he should be thrown out of the football game immediately there's no reason for that absolutely not this is this run it again let's run it again this is as blatant as the charles martin's play of a week ago john moore that you can imagine trying to take his head off should cost him two weeks at least now the question is the issue of overreacting the charles martin incident as jimmy alluded to was one week before uh a lot of newspaper articles written about violence and national footballing had you been concerned about that issue overreacting to a play yes well i've been concerned first about violence in the national football league because i think this year we have seen more than any other season started in pre-season with the with the fridge and the lomax of st louis in a pre-season game you theorize by the way one of your concepts is that you feel the violence has is on the rise because of the instant replay yes why well before before you get to that but also they had the violence in the kansas city raider game right and so then you had it the week before in soldier field so yes you saw it building i think i think i think one of the reasons that we've seen more is because of the instant replay rule is that the officials are becoming a little more tentative on the field because their authority has been usurped by the eye and the sky and i think that that professional athletes fact we all are we you know we're just growing up little boys and that when you have a new babysitter you will test the babysitter to see how far you can push the rules and i think that once the officials become a little tentative or can be overruled by the replay official i think that the players started to push the rules and to push the officials to see how far they could go and i think that's i think that's part and parcel of the same package i really do so you make your comment during the game and then you make a few comments after the game on television with mike ditka the next afternoon wmaq in chicago here is the actual broadcast of ditka and jones going at it here it is i think that otis wilson should be out as long as lewis lips is out but now i believe you've got to stop this violence at the top and mike ditka is at the top i have great respect for him i do not have respect for what one of his players did i think that mike ditka should be fined 20 000 all right mike your reaction well you know i'm sorry that charlie fills the way he does but you know i don't know what finding me would do i don't control that on the field i don't teach it i don't condone it i don't coach that way i made the statement very clear after the football game before seeing it it is no way in the world that it can be construed to be anywhere similar to what martin did but i tell you what's going to happen now when you become the judge jury and the executioner on the air you're going to have some problem because that's not the job of the announcer we ask you then what is the job of the announcer well i think that is the job of the announcer i think that our job and a way to differentiate it is is with the newspaper reporters i think that our job is entertainer slash journalist entertainer first because i work for nbc and the network buys the rights pays a lot of money for the rights to the games and uh and it is a profit center to them by selling the commercial therefore we are first entertainers i mean we have to get them in the tent we have to have the people the numbers and all that that's part of the package second in this slash then as we cover it we should be journalists now the the writers are first journalists because they don't buy the rights newspapers they're there as journalists but slash entertainers they have to write it well or nobody's going to read them but this is not a passive business unfortunately television is is hot as opposed to the cool print medium a few weeks ago another incident on the field and you remember it well uh tom lantry going off the field to wear a apparently a bulletproof vest you remember the moment here's the moment with them walking on the field frank gifford goes on the air talking about how this is sick society whoever is in the stands is sick and this is a sick development what's going on certainly frank is within his rights to say it and some might view that that is his job but you can exasperate the situation exacerbate the situation to a point where you inflame an issue i mean there are a lot of crazy people out there you make mention of something like this this could be a very dangerous precedent no that's true and uh and that it's never come up in a game that i've done but what has happened just like you know the incident that happened you think about these things as a broadcast if this happens in a game if there's too much violence in the game how am i going to react how am i going to talk about how am i going to handle it and i've been giving a lot of thought to exactly what if that was to happen in a game that i do and i don't have an answer because journalistically i mean we should talk about it but then again you don't want to plant a lot of ideas in a lot of in the heads of a lot of other people hey this is a neat idea let's go get the rifle and we'll you know and we'll go after somebody that's that's not the