Count Dani Watt as the lone voice in the NFL wilderness questioning the league’s wisdom about playing Sunday’s game in France amid civil unrest that has rocked Paris and other parts of the country.
Even as the league’s march toward playing its first-ever game in France seems inexorable with no one else publicly questioning going into a riot-torn country, Watt asked one simple question on her Instagram story relating to how the game remains on schedule:
“Tell me how this one makes sense???” Watt posted.
Dani Watt is T.J. Watt’s wife.
T.J. Watt is one of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ best players and perhaps their best defensive player.
And as such, he’s scheduled to board a charter flight with his teammates to France on Thursday in advance of the Steelers playing the New Orleans Saints at Stade de France, 20 miles or so from the center of Paris, where cars were burned and stores have been looted in recent days.
You know what else Dani Watt is?
She’s the first person connected to the NFL to ask this fundamental and logical question. No one else has done that.
No one else – not any coach, player or even any politician in either Louisiana or Pennsylvania – has been so candid about what is about to happen.
And what is about to happen is that the NFL is sending two teams to a foreign country dealing with burning, looting, protesting, rioting, arrests and other violence, so the teams can play a football game within driving distance of the problems.
So, to echo Watt, how does this one make sense?
The NFL has said, and insisted again on Tuesday, that all is well.
OutKick has reported multiple times in the past three days that the league is full steam ahead on playing this game.
Security has been heightened.
Contingencies have been considered.
And, dang it, we’re playing in France, the NFL says.
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NFL executive vice president for Club Business, International and League Events Peter O’Reilly was asked Tuesday about the NFL’s ongoing plans to play the game on Sunday.
And he went through the litany of precautions the NFL has been “vigilant” about in leading up to the game.
You know what the NFL hasn’t been vigilant about? Stuff that hasn’t happened. Stuff that might happen.
The situation on the ground is unpredictable because the students, communists, anarchists, anti-Israel and other protesters that have collaborated to make France a worse place to visit in recent days might do something no one expects.
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No one knows what that could be because these people are not predictable. They don’t always run a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-1.
They sometimes throw a bomb. Perhaps literally.
The NFL is confidently gambling none of that happens. And it probably will not. But nobody knows for sure.
And so the question Dani Watt is asking echoes in logic: How does this one make sense?