Jags' Keelan Cole Claims He Never Watches TV or Netflix, Ever

I’m going to take Keelan Cole at his word that he doesn’t have cable, Hulu or Netflix and the only video he watches is football game film. I don’t anything more about the man than he had a good rookie season so I’m not going to call him a liar.

I will say though, that I am highly suspicious of anyone who says they never watch TV. Cole is saying it’s because he’s focused on his football career, and that’s fine. When you’re an UDFA chasing a dream to stick in the NFL, maybe you make that sacrifice. I know personally if I just cut my TV viewing in half, I might win Nobel Prizes, in that way Costanza became a genius when he stopped thinking about sex. But as a general rule, “I never watch television” is shorthand for “I’m much more cultured than you and far too busy doing important things with the time I’ve been allotted my one precious life to ever waste it the way you do.” And, is a total lie.

We used to have a Senate president in Massachusetts who used to make that claim all the time. You may remember him as Whitey Bulger’s brother who spent about 15 years saying he had no idea where the FBI’s Most Wanted Man was hiding out. Anyway, you couldn’t read a profile of the guy without it including that little tidbit about how he doesn’t even own a TV. Like he sits at home every night improving his mind reading James Joyce or listening to Chopin or whatever. And my reaction was always the same. Really? So what did a guy like that do on 9/11?  Or when the Red Sox were winning the World Series in 2004? The night they killed Bin Laden? Election night 2016 for crying out loud? Are we supposed to think they just say, “I hear there’s something big going on but I’ll just have to wait for the morning papers to find out what” like we’re living in the 1800s?

And believe me, I have friends and family who claim they never watch TV and I’m not buying it. It’s what passes for virtue signalling in a time of 500 cable channels and a few dozen streaming services. Hell, I don’t even trust someone under the age of 70 who’s not on Twitter or Facebook for the same reason. Again, I’m not calling Keelan Cole a liar. And he’s probably a better man than I because he doesn’t spend 10 hours a week watching Below Decks Mediterranean and old Doctor Who. But the truer his claim is, the weirder I think it is.