Even before the San Diego Chargers were beat by the New Orleans Saints yesterday in London, the Chargers’ linebacker Shaun Phillips had a problem with traveling eight time zones to play a game where, according to his blog in the LA Times, no one gives a damn.

The NFL is the No. 1-grossing sport in America. It’s also the No. 1 most-watched sport in America, which makes me wonder why we travel halfway across the world to play a football game.

We’re sorta have the hankering of spamming him with “To sell hats and TV shirts,” but we’ve got a site to maintain.

We are in Europe and playing an American game that most people here don’t understand. I’ll be honest and say that I love playing football no matter where it is, but I wish the natives here were as excited to have us here as we are to play here! Nobody here knows anything about American football, nor do they seem to care.

As refreshing as it is to hear a football player totally call out the NFL and its total capitalistic ideals, we don’t know if this is the best bet in Herr Goddell’s regime where players are tossed first, asked questions later. The LA Times all but made this blog post disappear from their “Fabulous Forum” blog, pushing it down until it was off the front page and unlinking it from any tags that could’ve led to it. Was it for his safety, or the paper’s?

Shaun Phillips: In London, talking American football [LA Times]
Image [signonsandiego.com]