Steve Young, hero: “Everything about the NFL now is inelastic for demand. There’s nothing they can do right now to hurt the demand for the game. The bottom line is they don’t care. Player safety doesn’t matter in this case. Bring in the Division III officials – it doesn’t matter. In the end you’re still going to watch the game, we’re going to all complain and moan and gripe but … it doesn’t matter. Go ahead gripe all they want. I’m going to rest. Let them eat cake.”

I’m sure this will be a minority opinion, but I actually changed the channel at 10 pm to watch the season premiere of “Revolution” on NBC. The horribly officiated game was a blowout, Peyton Manning was tossing the ball around like Chad Pennington, and yes, I’m a sucker for an End-of-Days show (Lost meets Hunger Games?) with a female lead who bares a striking resemblance to Brooklyn Decker. I flipped back to the game during commercials, but I went to bed when the show was over at 11.

But back to Young’s awesome rant. He’s 100% right, of course. And Roger Goodell is reaching a dangerous point in his stewardship of the league. Between player safety, his relentless push for an 18-game season, fallout from his heavy-handed (and possibly baseless) suspensions for Bountygate … Goodell has to be extremely careful here. Change is not always good. Why mess with a popular, successful, product? Drop the 18-game pipe dream. Cave to the officials and get them back, STAT. And drop the dictatorship act. It’s wearing thin. [video via Adam]