Coach Tuberville Said What Every NFL Fan Was Thinking
Senator Tommy Tuberville’s takedown of woke NFL cheerleading is exactly the truth bomb fans have been waiting for.
Let’s be honest. Most NFL fans have been thinking it for a while, but few have had the guts to actually say it out loud. Enter Coach Tuberville, a man who has spent decades on the sidelines, who knows football culture better than any talking head in New York or Washington, and who just dropped the truth bomb about the Minnesota Vikings’ latest woke stunt: adding male cheerleaders to the squad.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked. Exactly. What the hell are you doing? It is the same question millions of fans have been muttering into their beers every Sunday while watching the league get hijacked by people more worried about Twitter applause than touchdowns.
This is not complicated. Fans do not buy tickets on Sunday afternoons to watch men in pom-poms prance around on the sidelines. They show up for football, for hard hits, big plays, and toughness. The NFL is the one place where masculinity is supposed to matter, and yet here we are with owners and a commissioner apparently more concerned about checking diversity boxes than putting the best product on the field. It is as if Roger Goodell secretly wishes the Super Bowl was halftime only and the game itself was optional.
And let’s be clear. These are not the traditional male cheerleaders we have seen in college athletics, the ones whose job is to throw female cheerleaders high in the air and hold them safely during routines. These are makeup-wearing, sideline dancers meant to mimic the cheerleading squads in a way that erases the difference between men and women. It is not about athleticism, it is about symbolism, and the symbol is simple: masculinity has to go. That is the entire point, and that is exactly what Tuberville is calling out.
Tuberville is right. This is not really about a couple of men in spandex. It is about the steady push to take the men out of men’s sports. It is about changing the narrative until the NFL looks more like a corporate HR department than the league of Butkus, Montana, and Reggie White. Imagine Vince Lombardi trying to make sense of this circus. And fans, especially in the South, are not buying it.
Maybe in Minnesota this flies. But let’s get real. Try this in Texas, Alabama, or Georgia, and you are going to hear a stadium full of boos louder than a blown pass-interference call. Fans in the South do not want woke halftime entertainment. They want football in football. Period. If the NFL insists on pushing this nonsense, they might as well replace the opening kickoff with a diversity seminar and hand out pronoun badges with season tickets.
So credit where it is due. Tuberville called out the NFL brass to their face. He reminded them that the league exists because millions of paying fans, overwhelmingly conservative, patriotic, and yes, masculine, choose to spend their money and their Sundays on the game. Alienate those fans, and the NFL’s cash machine stops cold. These owners may think they are invincible but just wait until empty stadiums start staring them back in the face and ratings plunge (see the woke NBA).
The bottom line is the Senator and coach at heart is right. If the league keeps chasing applause from the blue-check crowd instead of respecting the people who built the sport, they are going to lose more than just a few season-ticket holders. They are going to lose the soul of football.
And when that happens, it will not be the fans’ fault. It will be on the owners, the commissioner, and every ridiculous decision like this one.
Coach Tuberville said what everybody else was thinking. The NFL better listen, before football becomes just another politically correct sideshow where the actual game is the least interesting thing happening on the field.