There is no news in England that does not have some microscopic yet tangential link to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and while America has helped fuel that machine by taking the poor semi-orphaned waifs in to see how much Netflix money they could steal, it had not yet occurred to anyone that we might be just as sick of their story as the Brits are.
Well, shots fired back, kids. Roger Goodell, in his ancillary role as international agent-provocateur, has delivered unto London its 2025 football ambassadors, and he could not have chosen them with a more malicious eye. They are the Jacksonville Jaguars, the perennial colonial finger in the eye, the New York Jets, who may be trying to set up Brick Johnson for a future peerage but otherwise have no business being exported anywhere beyond Moonachie, and the Cleveland Browns, the most unpleasant team the league can offer. Jags, Jets, and Brownies are the buzzkill of this century, and they will all be ordered to infect Tottenham and Wembley Stadiums this coming fall in what under normal circumstances would be considered an act of war.
There are also games scheduled for Madrid and Berlin that have not yet been announced, but we can assume they will be given better teams in an attempt to bamboozle local denizens into not realizing that many NFL games unfortunately include the Raiders, Saints, Titans, or Panthers. And then there's Rio de Janeiro, which Goodell has already committed to more or less, Dublin, which he hinted at as a possibility, and Mexico City. He is semi-promising as many as eight international games, but if these first two are any indicator of future thinking, those countries should seriously consider not only refusing but declaring a trade war in response.
The problem here is that the NFL does not actually have 16 awful teams, because that would be Goodell's path out of this self-created conundrum. He could just take the draft order, dump it on a Risk board and say "You furriners grab whatever's left." He could look at the teams that haven't played overseas in the longest time and assign them, like the Steelers (2017, though they are the logical choice for Ireland), Commanders (2016), and Cowboys (2014), but that would mean months of sleeping in Jerry Jones's rosebushes and begging for an audience. He could risk serious public blowback and bestow most-favored-nation status on someone by sending the Lions, who haven't used their passports in 10 years, because what country doesn't deserve some Man Campbell exposure?
But the idea that you open the bidding with your three biggest eyesores is Anti-Marketing 101, because (a) Britain hasn't done anything to deserve this since the Stamp Act, and (b) nowhere else has paid enough tribute to the league to deserve better. These competitive mudslides are just the thing that make Europeans freak out about tariffs, and why Brexit has been such a failure. Shoddy goods like the Browns, Jaguars, and Jets are not good-faith trade items, they are taunts. Frankly, Keir Starmer's response-in-kind should be Southampton, Plymouth Argyle, and Manchester United's reserve team.
Arrogance, though, is where you find it. The NFL will send England three teams that didn't make the playoffs, and two teams that have never reached a Super Bowl and a third that hasn't reached one in 56 years, when helmets were made of conical newspaper hats. They are the couch, coffee table, and corner stand of a frat-house living room ensemble that has been abandoned on the front lawn. Or, to be more contemporary, the only items that link up in quality to Harry and Megs. Even if this isn't quid pro quo (or more accurately, quid pro semi-pro), it's an insult, and we should expect retaliation. If this ends up costing us Philomena Cunk, there will be some serious thermonuclear shit to pay.
