Occupy Drunk Driving: A Football Article

Aldon Smith, Occupiers take top headlines as Superweek starts

Pretty mediocre mugshot. Pretty incredible ears.

Maybe it's because I'm in the Bay Area right now, but all that anyone seems to want to talk about regarding football is the Occupy movement's appearance in Indianapolis. And if they don't want to talk about that, they want to talk about 49er defensive end and likely NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Aldon Smith's DUI arrest in Miami Sunday morning. For all intents and purposes, it looks like Mr. Smith had an intense Saturday night. I had my first shift at a local grocery store yesterday, bagging groceries. I quickly found this was one of those jobs (like bus driver, taxi driver, therapist) where people think it's OK to talk to you about whatever the hell they feel like. Most of the time, people wanted to talk about the gluten-free soy sauce substitute that contains no sodium that they just bought. But those who wanted to talk sports to the guy getting paper cuts so they can carry their food home wanted to tell me about how Aldon Smith is just a young kid making mistakes. I wholeheartedly agree (but also, I don't agree at all). I'll get to that in a second.



Meanwhile, everybody's favorite (or least favorite) political movement, those adorable Occupiers, have shown up at the Super Bowl. It really is a testament to the grass roots nature of that movement that I can see them being mildly irritating to the establishment at the Port Authority of Oakland one day and see them protesting something else entirely in Indianapolis today. Now, I say "protesting something," because I'm honestly not sure what this particular Occupation is about. While I'm not sure what it's about, SBNation assures us that Occupy the Superbowl really is "a thing," and NBCSports.com said "yep, it's already happening." Both sites cited and ran a snippet from USA Today, so I'll do the same.

"About 75 marchers weaved through packed crowds at the pre-game street fair in downtown Indianapolis in the first of what could be several such protests before the big game Feb. 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium. The protesters chanted “Occupy the Super Bowl” and carried signs that read “Fight the Lie” and “Workers United Will Prevail.”

 The marchers were what the Indianapolis star called "labor protesters" fighting a "right to work" bill that some worry will render the state's unions powerless with some OccupyIndiana folks mixed right in. I'm sure a vague notion of "unions" falls well within the established and even vaguer "99%" that the Occupy movement fights for, so I guess that's where the two groups come together. I only wish they chanted "We are the 100% who get paid less than Tom Brady."

These two non-football football stories have a common thread: the building of brands. The NFL is a brand, and the 49ers are a part of that brand, but at the same time the franchise is a brand unto itself. Both of these stories, the protests and the arrest of a promising young star, could in theory affect the NFL and San Francisco 49ers brands. But this is a story about how some brands are untouchable, while others...well, not so much.

I'm sure the Occupiers mean well. In fact, I know they do. And I am inclined to side with Indiana's unions in their "right to work" problem, a bill that Indiana Gov.  Mitch Daniels promised to sign into law. The unions are fighting the good fight, and have been doing so at the Indiana statehouse for some time now. Marching through Superbowl Village is a good way to get their cause some national press. But the inclusion of Occupiers in this forces one to assume that the Occupy Movement finds a problem with the NFL. Maybe they would contend that the NFL is part of the 1% (which they surely are), and this is a group/movement born to attack the 1%. But the NFL's brand is so strong, this will have no effect. There were only 75 marchers, which by itself is almost a non-story. But after the story was reported in national media, it became a big deal (again, at least in the Bay Area). Despite the media's efforts to drum up a firestorm around the Superbowl, the NFL will carry on as the financial juggernaut that it has been for my entire life (aka forever).

A few dozen Occupiers shouting about lies and greed will hardly make people stop and think about the role that major league sports plays in the nation's wealth disparity. People just want to see gigantic, souped up and probably artificially grown athletes smash into each other. Politics and health problems be damned. And even if they do stop and think, that thinking will be immediately interrupted by the pure spectacle that is James Harrison concussing yet another quarterback/running back/little old lady who got in his way. Seriously, I think that guy enjoys hitting people in the head so much it doesn't matter who it is.

James Harrison. Hopefully his wife has a helmet and a kevlar dress. Pic c/o Men's Journal

Point is, they may mean well, but the NFL is unstoppable. Protesting against anything NFL-related is a surefire way to evoke millions of simultaneous eye-rolls, which is something the Occupy Movement has perfected.

The 49ers as a part of the NFL brand are untouchable as well, in that the 49ers will continue to exist and sell their product for the foreseeable future. But Smith's very public gaff couldn't have come at a worse time. After a decade of straight-up sucking (as a Raiders fan, I'm an expert on shitty football teams), the 49ers experienced a rebirth this year, lead by a very quotable first-year coach named Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh more or less reinvented the 49ers brand, which was once the most recognizable one in the NFL. This was originally a franchise whose lore was built on the backs of legends, legends with sex appeal, legends who currently can be seen in the Hall of Fame. Legends who produced some of the most impressive offenses the league has ever seen. The old 49ers brand was built by the greatest coach in the sport's history, Bill Walsh, along with two of the best quarterbacks ever in Joe Montana and Steve Young. And both those guys threw the football to the Wayne Gretzky of the NFL, Jerry Rice. This was a brand built on offensive dominance and innovations. Surely their defenses were great. But no one can argue (though I'm sure Ronnie Lott would try) that this was a team built on offense.

And then they were terrible. It became a brand built on being a joke. Vernon Davis, a star during this year's playoff run, was sent off the field for being a selfish idiot. Quarterback Alex Smith was considered to be the natural successor to Ryan Leaf as "biggest draft bust ever." Then Harbaugh came in, and said "this team doesn't work hard and they don't win."

So he passed out workshirts to everyone on the team, a move that symbolized the change in 49ers culture. There was no Joe Montana, no Steve Young. Just a team that worked amazingly well together. A team with no true superstars. Yes, Carlos Rogers, Justin Smith, Dashon Goldson, Patrick Willis and Navarro Bowman had incredible seasons. But every last one of them could walk down the street anywhere besides San Francisco and not be recognized. I'll let coach Harbaugh explain it himself.

It was a team built on virtues, a team built on work ethic and not making mistakes. In short, it was a team of football players that Jim Harbaugh had trained to not act like football players. There were no absurd touchdown celebrations, there were very few on field penalties, very few turnovers, and not a single scandal or moment of controversy.

Until Aldon Smith went down to Miami in the first week of the off-season and had too many drinks and got behind the wheel of a car. Sure, he's 22-years old and had a pile of cash dropped into his lap at a very young age. I get it. He's under pressure, he's in a world he's not used to. But there are no excuses for driving drunk. I have a number of problems with how often celebs get busted for DUI, but I don't want to rant, so I'll quickly list them.

• Drunk driving is a despicable act that kills people all the damn time.
• I just don't get why celebrities put themselves in these situations. No one but my mom would give a damn if I got arrested for anything, but I still try my damnedest to avoid it, thus far with a 100% success rate. I refuse to believe I'm a better person than these idiots (I am a better person than some. You know who you are, Lohan). So clearly they're not trying that hard.
• You're a professional athlete/celebrity. You make millions of dollars in a matter of months. HIRE. A. FUCKING. DRIVER. I do that, and I'm not rich. I call it a taxi. I've never gotten a DUI in one. Not once. 

 Ok, now that that's over, back to branding. I don't think this will do any lasting harm to the 49ers as a business or as a team on the field. Harbaugh is a great coach, and Aldon Smith is the best rookie defensive lineman I've seen since Charles Haley. But the 49ers were on such a high, especially locally, because of how cohesive the team was, because of their clean image. It was a feel good story.

Now, the season's not even over a week and they're starting to act like normal, selfish and often stupid football players again. It puts a tarnish on what was, two fumbles aside, a perfect storybook season.

Hopefully Aldon Smith can look your coach in the eye and apologize for tarnishing one of, if not the greatest first year on coaching history. I know I would have a hard time with it. Harbaugh deserves better. Harbaugh expects better. Aldon Smith needs to be better.