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Brett Favre Says Fans Don't Want Politics Mixed With Sports, Endorses Presidential Candidate: TRAINA THOUGHTS

Brett Favre shows you "stick to sports" means "talk politics if you agree with me."

Jimmy Traina

1. Hypocrisy: the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

Hello, Brett Favre.

The Hall of Fame quarterback said this to Donald Trump eight days ago: “The NBA and the NFL are struggling with lower ratings, as fans clearly do not want political messaging mixed with their sports.”

Clearly, the irony of an athlete saying politics and sports shouldn't mix while said athlete is publicly speaking to the president of the United States was lost on Favre.

And now, eight days after Favre declared fans don't want sports and politics to mix, he tweeted this: 

First things first. If you read Traina Thoughts regularly, you know almost every sport is struggling with lower ratings. The MLB and NHL are coming off the lowest-rated World Series and Stanley Cup ever.

And while NFL ratings are down slightly, the league's viewership is still rock solid and draws better numbers than anything else on television.

So the premise of Favre's question was ridiculous.

Two, ALWAYS remember, whenever someone says, "Fans don't want to hear political messages," or "Stick to sports," they really mean, "I only want to hear someone's political beliefs if they are the same as mine."

Here's how America is supposed to work: NBA players, NFL players and any other athlete on the planet is allowed to speak out about social injustice, police reform and any other topic they want. Brett Favre is allowed to wax poetic about Trump and endorse him for president.

Nobody has to stick to sports. And nobody should be telling anyone to stick to sports.

2. One of the more underrated amusing things in sports is when a player or coach tries to pump up a terrible opponent and convince us an awful team is dangerous.

Enter Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones, who had this to say about the Jets, who are 19.5-point underdogs against Kansas City this Sunday: 

“That’s a very good football team. Sam Darnold… doesn’t get the credit, but he’s a very very good quarterback. I think people tend to forget that because of their record. But they have guys out there. They play really well. They’ve been in a lot of close games. And you can’t take those guys for granted. That’s a hell of a football team.”

3. Remember when Bill Belichick showed up to a press conference a few weeks ago looking like this?

Good Morning Football's Kyle Brandt used that look for his Halloween costume on today's show and couldn't have nailed it any better.

4. World Series champions Cody Bellinger and Clayton Kershaw appeared on Thursday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! The highlights come from Jimmy at the 2:30 mark and the 4:25 mark.

5. This week's SI Media Podcast features an interview with Kirk Herbstreit. The college football analyst discusses what doing College GameDay without fans has been like this season, his relationship with Lee Corso, the infamous Eminem interview he did with Brent Musburger, whether he'd leave college football to call NFL games, the reaction to him getting emotional on air discussing social injustice, his favorite College GameDay guest picker, what happened when Corso dropped an f-bomb on College GameDay and much more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Play.

6. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The only way to celebrate Halloween is by watching one of Curb Your Enthusiasm's greatest scenes.

7. SPORTS VIDEO OF THE DAY: Still one of the worst plays in NFL history.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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