The NFL’s knee-taking season summary: A psychological review of the loss of viewers, fans and player’s confidence
Sports Illustrated recently encapsulated the significant three-year drop off in NFL viewership where author Richard Deitsch sounded the alarm in reflecting on the disastrous 2016 season: “The numbers are heading in the wrong direction — and quickly.”
Deitsch’s sobering analysis included statistics citing this season’s lack of competitiveness in which a multi-year record was set in a flurry of uncompetitive games decided by 14 points or more.
While Deitsch laments the “competitiveness gap,” he failed to note the contributing trend where teams that knelt for the national anthem not only under-performed “Vegas” predictions, but surprisingly lost many games considered “locks” in the sports-betting world when playing non-protesting teams.
This sports psychology-based phenomena dubbed Self Inflicted Degradation of Performance Syndrome (SIDOPS) centered on one-time 49er Colin Kaepernick’s statistically unsubstantiated “racial bias in police shootings” claims — such as the popular “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative — which placed protesting players into a pre-game “victim based” mental deficit while potentially also debilitating non-kneeling teammates through a process called “social contagion.”
Moreover, with roughly half of the NFL Players Union Association’s (NFLPA) membership carrying an arrest record, there’s no denying the potential of a heightened emotional investment in the “anti-police” protests. This first-person connection here suggests there would be a stronger SIDOPS impact on some players than in others — but in either case experiments demonstrate that mental distractions reduce one’s physical abilities.
In a response to the season’s tumult, the NFL announced in October it would partner with the NFLPA to begin using “… our platform to both raise awareness and make progress on issues of social justice and equality in this country.” Yet even in wake of the league’s social justice promise, players continued to protest and suffered the consequences as captured in headlines such as: “NFL Week 9 – 100 percent of anthem kneelers suffer self inflicted degradation of performance syndrome” and “NFL Week 10 – SIDOPS strikes again!”
However on November 29 the NFL made a significant announcement with ESPN reporting that the “[NFL] would contribute nearly $100 million to causes considered important to African-American communities. The NFL hopes this effort will effectively end the peaceful-yet-controversial movement that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernickstarted when he refused to stand for the national anthem last season.”
In the science of SIDOPS, this “NFL acquiesces to the kneelers’ message” may be seen as the light switch essentially “flipping the script” on a team’s psychology from the earlier “victimhood” narrative (re-enforced with unexpected game losses compounded by ticket sale and TV viewership drops not to mention internal organizational and political pressure) to a new identity built on pride where the “kneelers” — no pun intended — stood up for what they believed in against all pressure. With a new sport’s psychology theme built on heroics, victors or winners… one would expect the original SIDOPS team — the San Francisco 49ers — to see an abrupt change in their performance.
Coming into the November 29 announcement, the continuously-protesting 49ers had lost an amazing 100 percent of their combined 2016 and 2017 regular season games against non-protesting opposition in racking up 24 losses and 3 wins. The team’s 3 regular season wins came only against other anthem protesting teams — the 2016 Rams twice and 2017 Giants. But once NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL announced their social justice concessions, the 49er’s took their re-invigorated positive mindset and closed out the season with an impressive five straight wins (their longest win streak since 2013). The streak included taking out three highly-competitive playoff-bound teams; the Titans (25-23); the Jaguars (44-33) and the Rams (34-13).
While November’s social justice “win” NFL announcement clearly impacted the original SIDOPS-struck 49’ers in a bounce-back fashion that blew away even ESPN’s game-by-game predictions, the post-announcement example could not be applied to the 49’ers fellow west coast team the Seahawks.
Predicted to win the 2016 Super Bowl by some professionals, the aggressively “kneeling” team disappointed in part due to their unexpected losses to non-kneeling teams and potentially due the distracting “racism” charge star player Michael Bennett levied against the Las Vegas Police Department, which proved to be unfounded, thus diluting his social justice credibility.
But in either case, the lingering issue of the credibility and impact of “Social Justice” causes being inserted into sports — no matter the level or even the validity of the protest — needs to be considered not just by sports predictors, but by everyone. While “taking a knee” may be a fairly new phenomenon, the precepts and philosophies of a positive mind set, unity and finding common ground in business, politics and even sports pays positive dividends for everyone involved.
— Andre Billeaudeaux
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