Big Football Guy Marco Rubio Ensures Us the NFL Game in France Won't Be Affected by All the Chaos

Guy Smallman. Getty Images.

I'm going to be upfront and admit I started this post yesterday and just couldn't figure out how to approach it. So I decided it would be best to step away, make dinner. watch Survivor and sleep on it. And part of me still thinks the wise move would be to lay this down and avoid the topic like an unexploded IED. But I'm going to try to stumble through it anyway. 

Everyone knows what's been going on in France. I won't post any of the videos simply because I don't want to. Watching the utter lawlessness and chaos over there kicks in a cortisol-fueled reaction I have no desire to engage with. Unless you're in the thick of the mayhem and need the fight-or-flight response, it isn't healthy. But the footage is unavoidable. You'll find it everywhere accept here. 

And I won't get into the geopolitics of what's happening. Other than to say the media trying to portray the riots as "students protesting school budgets" or whatever language they're choosing, are committing malpractice. This isn't high school kids staging a walk out to support of the school librarian who got laid off. If you can show me one 15 year old girl carrying a piece of posterboard with handwritten letters made out of rainbow glitter markers, in the streets of Paris, I'll admit I'm wrong. But what we're seeing is hordes of military-aged men attacking firefighters and police, burning down buildings, torching vehicles, smashing windows, looting businesses and destroying people's livelihoods. If they're doing that over concern for teacher's salaries, it's the first time in human history. 

What it looks from here is like one of the oldest nations in Western Civilization is collapsing in real time before our eyes. A culture that has endured everything for millennia - from the old Frankish kingdoms, to Charles "The Hammer" Martel winning the Battle of Tours 1,300 years ago, to his grandson Charlemagne being crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 800, to The Hundred Years War, to the French Revolution and The Terrors that followed, to two World Wars - may not survive this situation. Or may be unrecognizable when it's over. 

I mean, even the fucking Nazis, who stole every priceless piece of art they could get their grubbly little blood-soaked hands on, left Paris standing when the Allies kicked their asses back to Berlin. The Louvre has been closed indefinitely, understanding there's no one in this mob of nihilists who's going to look at all the priceless art in there, have a Come-to-Jesus moment, and safely place their Molotov cocktails in the proper recycling bin. 

Which brings me at long last to the reason why I'm bringing this up. It's into this anarchy that the NFL, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to put on a football game. Granted, the schedule was agreed upon long before a great nation broke out in civil war, but here we find ourselves. Roger Goodell keeps reminding us that in order to "grow the game," he's got to force teams to fly halfway around the world to entertain people who prefer sports were only two guys on the field are allowed to put their hands on the ball. After all, if Ginger Satan doesn't send the Steelers and Saints to France this weekend, the league will just have to settle for continuing to dominate American life and being the most profitable sports enterprise since the Romans were selling out the Coliseum and not paying the Gladiators. And that's just not good enough.

So enter Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who went viral for saying his perfect day would be 14 straight hours of college football:

And he's here to remind us all that putting an NFL game in the middle of a nation engulfed in flames will be just fine:

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… cars burned and businesses damaged. 

And he's getting reassurance directly from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who confirms the U.S. Embassy has no indication the matchup will be disrupted. 

The Saints are already in France without reported incidents, while the Steelers are preparing to make the trip. 

Could the NFL move the game if conditions worsen? Here's what league officials have said about that possibility:

Source -  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said … he's confident it will be safe to attend and play the game due in no small part to assurances he received from United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which were confirmed to OutKick by Rubio himself.

"We're involved at the highest levels both in France on a global basis with our officials here, including, I had a conversation here with the Secretary of State a couple of days ago.  … We're guests in the country. We're going to be good guests. We're going to do our thing and I'm confident they're going to do theirs."  …

"Our embassy feels the game will be fine," Rubio told OutKick and Fox News Digital. "We have no indication the game will be impacted in any way." …

"Very high is my comfort level," Goodell said. "Again, we've made all the preparations. We've been in touch with all the appropriate authorities.

"Protests are not unusual in France, as you know. And that's something that we will be aware of and make sure that the appropriate arrangements are made."

"Protests are not unusual in France, as you know." Yes, we do know. The French are famous for taking to the streets if the retirement age goes up a year of a bad season of rain makes the Bordeaux too oakey. This isn't that. This is bedlam. There are photos of a firefighter in flames and video of a woman taking a blowtorch to the face. And yet Der Kommissar is choosing to do the humanoid equivalent of the dog in the meme:

Giphy Images.

And if I'm being honest, which isn't easy when it comes to that soulless animatronic twit, this time I agree with him. Not in holding these international games, which I would end this year if it were up to me. But in terms of declaring the show must go on this weekend. 

This is the NFL's chance to show the world how we do things in America. Pro football tamed the wild frontier of Foxborough, MA, so it can survive anywhere. They'll surround Stade de France with a ring of iron. If necessary, to make a stand there like it's The Alamo and fight to the last. Do we have any business hosting a football game there? Hell no. But that's never stopped us before. Whatever those maniacs are burning down centuries-old buildings for, it's no more important than the Steelers leading the AFC North and the Saints trying to stay in the playoff hunt in the worst division in the league, the NFC South. So we'll export that part of our culture that cares way more than we should about a sport no one in France gives a merde about. Because if we don't go through with this game, les terroristes gagnent. 

And with any luck, all the people committing these acts of violence will take a few hours, watch Pittsburgh-New Orleans, see what it's like when violence is done right, and have such a good time they'll put aside their grievances, embrace democracy, and peace will reign throughout the land. All thanks to some good old NFL diplomacy. If so, I'll nominate Goodell for the Nobel Peace Prize myself. 

But just to be safe, I suggest both teams keep the jet engines running and ready to head back to the States as soon as the game's over. I don't share Goodell and Rubio's optimism.