For obvious reasons, the Sunday shows this week all had football on the brain.
On Meet the Press, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith and NFL executive vice president Jeff Pash both popped up to tout the success of measures aimed at making the game safer. Smith, a D.C. native who grew up a Redskins fan, initially demurred when asked whether he thought the team’s name should be changed, before ultimately concluding that “if it’s in the best interests of everybody that we not offend anybody, then let’s make that change.”
This Week led with a short segment about the extensive security precautions DHS is taking ahead of today’s Super Bowl. (Said precautions appear to be the only internal DHS activity the agency doesn’t want hidden from the public, but I digress.) New Arizona governor Doug Ducey then showed up to express his state’s excitement at getting to host the big game.
Over on CBS, NFL Today host James Brown previewed the game itself with his colleague, “the peripatetic Norah O’Donnell” (Brown’s words, not mine), who was filling in as host of Face the Nation.
And topping all of these luminaries for sheer entertainment value was Hall of Fame running back John Riggins, who sat down for a short interview with Chris Wallace at the end of Fox News Sunday.
Wallace, who claims he was sitting at the next table when Riggins made his now-infamous, drunken come-on to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at a black-tie dinner in 1985, asked Riggins about the incident.
“You mean the night that Sandra Day O’Connor and I got engaged?” Riggins replied, smiling. “‘Loosen up Sandy baby,’ I believe is what I [said to O’Connor]. But then again, you’re asking me? I wouldn’t make a very good witness on this one.”
Most amusing of all was Riggins’ take on Deflate-Gate, in the clip above: “If I was ever to rob a bank, I would take Bill Belichick along, because I know when we get caught — and we will get caught, just because it’s Bill — he ain’t tellin’ nobody anything.”
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