GSB News and Notes: Eco-QB Josh Rosen Keeps Up Climate Fight; Green Sports Alliance “Plays for Next Generation”; Netherlands’ Get-Paid-to-Bike-to-Work Scheme Spreads

Happy Friday! In our TGIF GSB News & Notes column:

— The trade of quarterback Josh Rosen was one of the biggest stories to come out of last weekend’s NFL Draft. Post-draft, Rosen’s climate and environmental activism somehow became linked to the trade, at least on social media.

— Meanwhile, the UN’s Sports for Climate Action platform received a huge boost when the Green Sports Alliance agreed to sign on.

— And the Netherlands continues its environmental leadership by paying people to ride their bikes to work. 

 

CLIMATE CHANGE COMES UP IN SOCIAL MEDIA DISCUSSION OF JOSH ROSEN TRADE

There were two bizarre aspects to the trade of quarterback Josh Rosen from the Arizona Cardinals to the Miami Dolphins during the second round of last weekend’s NFL Draft in Nashville.

#1 The Arizona Cardinals selected quarterbacks in the first round two years in a row, something that has only happened once before in NFL history¹.

In 2018, the Cardinals moved up in the first round to choose Rosen with the tenth overall pick. Given the high value of that pick, Rosen was seen as the future of the franchise. That future lasted one frazzled season — his surrounding cast was weak, the UCLA product struggled, the team ended up with the worst record in the league, the coaching staff was fired, a new coach was hired, and the new head man professed unabashed love for Kyler Murray, the 2018 Heisman Trophy winning QB from the University of Oklahoma.

As a reward for having the worst record in the NFL, Arizona owned the first overall pick in the draft, and they used it grab Murray.

That meant Rosen had to go and the Dolphins, with one of the worst quarterback situations in the league, were happy to grab him for only a second round draft choice.

#2 Rosen’s interest in climate change and the environment became a rationale for Arizona’s desire to get rid of him.

The Rosen trade went down last Friday, the second day of the three-day draft. This tweet went up on Monday:

 

 

WQAM is a Miami sports talk radio station.

Rosen’s interest in the environment seemingly plays into one of the main criticisms about him: Too smart for his own good, always questions things, wants to understand the why of everything.

Color me crazy, but all of those critiques sound like strengths.

And how does an interest in the environment have anything to do with the way Rosen actually plays quarterback? I’m sure he is not thinking about the parts-per-million of CO₂ in the atmosphere as he’s about to get clobbered by a posse of hungry and angry defenders.

Back to Twitter.

A couple hours after the first tweet, Rosen was quoted in another, reacting to the media kerfuffle that resulted from his decision to unfollow the Cardinals on Instagram after they drafted Kyler Murray to replace him.

 

 

Parley for the Oceans is a non-profit that partners with adidas to produce apparel and footwear made from plastic ocean waste.

Rosen nailed the idiocy of people getting annoyed that he unfollowed the Cardinals, generating free publicity for Parley’s important work cleaning the oceans at the same time.

While the jury is still out on Rosen as an NFL quarterback — he had a statistically awful rookie season but, as mentioned above, he was stuck in a bad situation, including playing behind a leaky offensive line in Arizona — it is clear he knows his stuff when it comes to climate change.

Here’s a quote from Rosen in the run-up to the draft a little more than a year ago that shows he is an eco-athlete to watch:

One cause I’ll champion is the environment. It touches everything. I mean, the war in Syria started because of the drought and famine that destabilized the country and led the population to revolt against the government. I know global warming is a partisan issue for some stupid reason, but it touches everything.

Being traded to a quarterback-needy team located in sea level rise-threatened South Florida could be a win-win; for the Dolphins and the climate change fight.

 

GSB’s Take: I’m seriously conflicted here.

On the one hand, I love that Rosen is an eco-athlete who actually talks about the environment and climate change in public. If he does well on the field and continues to speak out on climate off of it, that will be a very good and important thing indeed.

On the other hand, I’m a New York Jets diehard. They and the Dolphins are big rivals so cheering for Miami has never been an option. And in last year’s draft, the Jets picked a rookie quarterback of their own in the first round. Sam Darnold of USC showed flashes of potential to be their first franchise signal caller since the days of Joe Willie Namath a (very long) half century ago. So he and Rosen will also be rivals for perhaps the next 10-15 years.

What to do?

I can’t switch from the Jets and Darnold — that’s too ingrained in my DNA. But aside from the two annual Jets-Dolphins matchups, I will pull for Josh Rosen.

 

GREEN SPORTS ALLIANCE ENCOURAGES MEMBERS TO COMMIT TO SPORTS FOR CLIMATE ACTION FRAMEWORK VIA “PLAYING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION”

The Green Sports Alliance marked Earth Week by launching “Playing for the Next Generation,” a campaign designed to encourage its members and partners to commit to the United Nation’s Sports for Climate Action Framework.

The Framework, which the UN kicked off in December, is buttressed by five overarching principles: 

1. Undertake systematic efforts to promote greater environmental responsibility;
2. Reduce overall climate impact;
3. Educate for climate action;
4. Promote sustainable and responsible consumption;
5. Advocate for climate action through communication.

Sports for Climate Action’s charter members represent a Who’s Who of sports governing bodies, leagues and events, including the International Olympic Committee, Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, French Tennis Federation (Roland Garros), International Sailing Federation, World Surf League, and Formula E.

Forest Green Rovers, the English League Two football club and, it says here, the greenest team in sports, is also a charter member. And, as reported in GreenSportsBlog on April 23, the New York Yankees became the first North American sports organization to sign a pledge to support Sports for Climate Action.

The Yankees’ Earth Day-themed pregame ceremony on April 21 commemorated the club’s commitment to operate by the tenets of the UN’s Sports for Climate Action platform. From left to right, it’s Doug Behar, Yankees Director of Operations; Satya Tripathi, UN Assistant Secretary General; Yankees manager Aaron Boone, and Allen Hershkowitz, Environmental Science Advisor to the Yankees (Photo credit: New York Yankees)

Now the Alliance has stepped up to encourage its 500+ members, including MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL and NHL, to commit to the Framework.

“The Alliance recognizes the vital need for the sports industry to address climate change and play a significant role in combatting it,” said Roger McClendon, Executive Director of the Alliance. “By supporting this Framework, sports teams are committing to work collaboratively with peers, sponsors, fans, and other relevant stakeholders to implement the UN’s climate action agenda in sports.”  

GSB’s Take: The UN’s Sports for Climate Action Framework just got a big momentum boost with the addition of the Green Sports Alliance to its roster. The Alliance will no doubt promote support of the Framework to its many members. GSB expects to see 1) Alliance members large and small sign on, and 2) Sports for Climate Action to get a lot of attention at the Alliance’s annual Summit in Philadelphia in June. As for the Framework’s five principles, GSB hopes the Alliance and its members put particular emphasis on #3 (Educate for climate action) and #5 (Advocate for climate action through communication).

DUTCH WORKERS GET PAID FOR COMMUTING TO WORK; NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES GET INTO THE ACT

The Netherlands is a Green-Sports leader.

Ajax (AH-Yax), the country’s top soccer club with 25 first division championships and a contender for the European Champions League title this season, has deployed a Nissan Leaf storage battery at Amsterdam ArenA. 

But it is at the grassroots level where the country’s Green-Sports leadership really shines through. Consider these two factoids:

1. There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands;
2. Bikes account for almost half of all journeys between home and work in  Amsterdam. 

Yes, the pervasiveness of bike paths makes commuting on two wheels safe. And the country’s flat terrain makes it easy for people to get around on their bikes. But, according to a story by Sean Fleming in weforum.org, the Dutch government gives the public a helpful leg up on to their bikes in the form of tax credits.

Every kilometer cycled to and from work can earn a Dutch citizen up to an extra 22¢US tax-free. And this is no longer unique to the Netherlands: A similar incentive is now available to bike commuters in neighboring Belgium. 

Commuters are paid to ride their bikes to work in the Netherlands (Photo credit: Yves Herman/Reuters)

I know what you’re thinking: “What about the third Low Country, Lew? What about Luxembourg?!”

Not to worry. Luxembourg workers can take advantage of a $340 tax rebate to be used to buy a bicycle.

France, clearly looking to their Low Country counterparts, will enact a cycle-to-work reimbursement program next year.

While Great Britain is trying to figure out how to (Br)exit the EU, their Cycle to Work program mimics their counterparts (for now) on the continent. The UK operates a lease-to-own model allowing employees to get discounted bikes and equipment through their employer.

The employer buys the bike and leases it to the employee. Monthly lease payments are deducted before taxes, resulting in an after-tax savings of 32 percent for most taxpayers. A mileage allowance is also available for British cyclists who use their bikes for business purposes.

What about the USA?

Fleming reports there are “a range of tax breaks aimed at commuters in the US, too, including a $20 per month allowance for cycling expenses. However, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (aka “The Trump Tax Cuts”) changed all that and cycling costs can no longer be deducted from pre-tax pay, effectively making it a little more expensive for some American cyclists.”

GSB’S Take: GSB is not surprised the Netherlands leads on providing incentives for bike commuting. After all, with much of its coastline lying below sea level, the country has by necessity led the world in developing technologies to fight climate change-caused sea level rise. Sadly we are also not surprised that the Trump Tax Cut law made it less rewarding financially for American cyclists.

¹ The Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts selected Ohio State’s Art Schlichter in the first round in the 1982 draft and then chose John Elway out of Stanford with the first overall pick of the 1983 draft.

 

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UCLA’s Josh Rosen, Eco-Athlete, Hopefully Will Be Gang Green’s (aka NY Jets) Next Quarterback

This year’s NFL draft is considered by many so-called experts to be a quarterback bonanza. Many mock drafts have four QBs — in alphabetical order, they are Josh Allen of Wyoming, Sam Darnold of USC, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, and Josh Rosen of UCLA — being chosen in the top 10 picks of the first round. In fact, there is a solid chance that the first three picks of the draft will be quarterbacks. It says here that, if he is available when Gang Green, aka the New York Jets, my New York Jets make the third overall pick in the first round, they should select Rosen for two good reasons: 1. He’s the best pure passer in the draft and has a high football IQ, and 2. He’s an eco-athlete! 

 

EDITORS’ WARNING: THE FIRST TEN PARAGRAPHS OF THIS GSB POST GET INTO THE MINUTIAE OF THE NFL DRAFT, THE ANNUAL SELECTION OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL STARS THAT DRAWS A TELEVISION AUDIENCE OF ALMOST 10 MILLION VIEWERS, AS WELL AS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SCARS OF NEW YORK JETS FANS. IF THIS DOES NOT APPEAL TO YOU BUT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE ECO-ATHLETE ASPECT OF THIS STORY, PLEASE SKIP AHEAD TO THE PROMPT BELOW. THANK YOU.

The New York Jets have been in the quarterback desert for almost 50 years, the halcyon days of Joe Willie Namath and the miracle of Super Bowl III. As a Jets fan since the then, I — and my brothers and sisters in green — have suffered, quarterback-wise, through the unspeakably awful (Browning Nagle, Geno Smith), the hopeful-but-ultimately-meh (Richard Todd, Mark Sanchez), the good-ones-derailed-by-injury (Chad Pennington) and the pretty-good-but-did-they-really-bloody-pick-him-before-Dan Marino?!?! (Ken O’Brien).

 

Browning Nagle, one of many Jets quarterback busts over the past 40 years (Photo credit: Gang Green Nation)

 

That legacy of abject failure means most Jets fans approach the first round of the 2018 draft — which takes place April 26 in Dallas — with typical sports fan hope (“we’re picking third, we need a quarterback AGAIN and there are four top QB prospects. We will get one of them!”) leavened by a heaping helping of fatalism (“not all of them will be good and these idiots will pick the wrong guy!” and/or “even if they pick the right guy, he’ll get hurt!”)

And that fatalism is amped up by the fact that the Jets, originally slotted to pick sixth in the first round (the 32 NFL teams pick in inverse order of their finish the season before — the team with the worst record picks first, the team that won the Super Bowl picks 32nd), traded two their two* second round draft picks this year and their second round pick in 2019 to the Indianapolis Colts to move up to the third slot as they were fearful of missing out on the Big Four. Second round draft picks are expected to turn out to be solid-to-very good starters so that was a heavy price to pay. But if you don’t have a quarterback, you’re nowhere, so, it says here, it was a trade the Jets had to make.

And that amped up fatalism has been dialed up to DEFCON1^ status because, as good as the Class of 2018 quarterbacks appear to be — Allen has one of the most powerful arms seen in recent years, Darnold looks like the complete package, especially his ability to improvise under pressure, Mayfield is a leader and is very accurate, and Rosen is seen as the best pure passer and the most intelligent of the bunch — none are sure things. They all have flaws: Allen’s accuracy, Darnold turns the ball over too much, Mayfield is too short, and Rosen has a concussion history and is alleged to have personality issues (or, as Sam Alipour of ESPN The Magazine puts it, while “roughly half of draft-loving America feels he’s a future franchise QB, while the other half fears he’s a crap-stirring, system-disrupting locker room poison pill.”)

So, who should the Jets pick? It depends on who will be available.

With the draft two weeks away, conventional wisdom has it that the Cleveland Browns, picking first and with a three decades long need at QB, will select Darnold. As an aside, if you’re unfamiliar with the NFL draft and the first 500+ words of this post make no sense, rent the 2014 movie “Draft Day,” starring Kevin Costner. It gives you a Hollywood-i-fied version of the draft, it’s entertaining and Costner’s character runs the draft for the Cleveland Browns. Art imitating life.

The New York Giants — the “older brother” rival of the Jets — have the second pick. Eli Manning won two Super Bowls (2008, 2012) for them at QB but he’s 37. Backup Davis Webb, a third round pick last year, is untested. If these QBs are really “all that”, then the Giants will pick one. If they opt to stay with Manning and Webb, they could trade down to amass more picks, to a team more desperate for a signal-caller (Denver, Miami, Buffalo, and Arizona are all in that predicament, to one degree or another). Or, they stay put pick the best non-quarterback in the draft. I think Big Blue will pick a QB. My guess — and it’s just a guess — is that they will take Josh Allen, loving his big arm in the cold weather games of the northeast. But, for the sake of this Jets-centric post, let’s assume they take a non-QB (pass rusher Bradley Chubb would be my choice in that case), giving Gang Green the choice of the law firm of Allen, Mayfield, and Rosen.

I would pick Josh Rosen.

 

Josh Rosen, working out for NFL scouts in the run up to the draft (Photo credit: Michael Owen Baker/Associated Press)

 

My biggest concern is his concussion history but I’m not worried about the personality stuff. And on the field, I like his vision, decision making and arm. He’s not as good a runner as the other three but he moves well enough to extend plays. If Darnold somehow is available when the Jets pick, I would take him. Otherwise, for me, it’s Rosen.

 

Josh Rosen (l) and Sam Darnold shake hands after Darnold’s USC Trojans defeated Rosen’s UCLA Bruins last season (Photo credit: Kevin Kuo/USA Today)

 

ECO-ATHLETE ONLY READERS, IT’S SAFE TO REJOIN US HERE.

And that was before I learned about Rosen’s eco-athleticism on Tuesday. In an in-depth interview on espn.com with Sam Alipour (it’s well worth reading), Rosen took on the personality issues that have dogged him, and showed himself to be a curious, insightful 21 year-old. And he also discussed climate change when discussing which causes he will champion as a pro:

I think it’ll evolve, but one cause I’ll champion is the environment. It touches everything. I mean, the war in Syria started because of the drought and famine that destabilized the country and led the population to revolt against the government. I know global warming is a partisan issue for some stupid reason, but it touches everything.

Rosen is the first athlete I know of who made the link between climate change, the drought in Syria, and, by inference, the resulting refugee crisis. I expect this from Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman but not from a quarterback about to be a first round NFL draft pick.

It shows common sense, the ability to connect dots, and the ability to think. All important, if underrated, qualities for an NFL QB.

So, to New York Jets General Manager Mike Maccagnan, the ultimate decider in the draft room, bring eco-athlete Josh Rosen to Gang Green.

Unless, of course, Sam Darnold is available. Then all bets are off.

 

* The Jets had an additional second round pick in the 2018 draft due to a prior trade with the Seattle Seahawks

^ DEFCON1 is the most severe level of readiness of the U.S. military, on a 1 to 5 scale

 

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MLB, MLS and NFL Step Up During Earth Fortnight

Late April is a great time of year to be a sports fan. The NBA and NHL playoffs are in the early days of their two month championship/Stanley Cup marathons. The NFL Draft, Christmas in April for football fans—especially those who root for perennial also rans like my New York Jets—starts on Thursday night. Major League Baseball’s and Major League Soccer’s regular seasons are in full swing.

And we are in the midst of Earth Fortnight (Earth Day was Saturday, April 22; related celebrations were held during the week prior and are continuing this week), a great time for sports leagues to highlight their sustainability bona fides to their fans and other stakeholders. 

GreenSportsBlog will have two Earth Fortnight-Green Sports columns for you: An in-depth feature on the NBA’s greening activities is upcoming. And today, we review the Earth Day/Earth Fortnight activities of MLB, MLS, and the NFL. What about the NHL? They’re in the process of completing their third consecutive carbon-neutral season so one could say every day is Earth Day over there.

 

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: 5TH ANNUAL CARBON NEUTRAL GAME AT FENWAY; HELPING TREES GROW IN BROOKLYN

The third Monday in April is tradition-laden in Boston. It’s Patriots’s Day (thankfully, named not in honor of the football team, but for John Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, etc. Those Pats). The Boston Marathon snaked its way for 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston. At the early but traditional 11 AM start time, the Red Sox took the field against the Tampa Bay Rays as the marathon passed close by Fenway Park.

And, in a newer tradition, for the fifth consecutive year, the BoSox observed Earth Day by offsetting all carbon emissions from that day’s game and sorting waste to recover recyclables and food waste. The offsets were made in the form of renewable energy credits (RECs) purchased from several Massachusetts-based solar installations: Morra Brook Farm in Rehoboth, Westford Stony Brook School in Westford, and the firehouse and library in Wellfleet.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, on Earth Day itself, approximately 35 front office employees at MLB, MLB Network and MLB Advanced Media volunteered at Lincoln Terrace Park for New York Cares Day (Spring). New York Cares is an amazing organization that serves as a platform for New Yorkers who want to volunteer with seniors, youth, on environmental cleanup, etc. They manage over 400 such projects per month. I have been a New York Cares volunteer for over 20 years and can attest to its phenomenal work.

New York Cares Day is a massive, five borough-wide environmental cleanup and beautification initiative, pooling the efforts of over 4,000 volunteers at 40 public spaces. In the case of Lincoln Terrace Park, volunteers were tasked with composting, removing invasive seedlings, planting ground covers and clearing the park of debris.

 

Volunteers from MLB, MLB Network and MLB Advanced Media at Earth Day cleanup in Lincoln Terrace Park in Brooklyn, NY (Photo credit: MLB)

 

MLS’ LA GALAXY AND STUBHUB CENTER “PROTECT THE PITCH” IN EARTH WEEK INITIATIVE

StubHub Center and the LA Galaxy hosted a variety of environmentally-focused community events last week in the run up to Protect the Pitch Day, their Earth Day-themed, nationally-televised home game vs. the Seattle Sounders on Sunday.

The week featured school tours of Stub Hub Center, featuring the stadium’s initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations. These range from the high-tech (on-site advanced battery storage units from Tesla) to the not-so-high-tech (four bee hives that will produce over 800 pounds of honey annually, produce grown from the LA Galaxy Greenhouse; both will be used for healthy food preparation for players, coaches and staff)

LA area elementary school students explore StubHub Center’s sustainability projects, such as its greenhouse which produces numerous types of vegetables to provide food for players and staff. (Photo credit: LA Galaxy)

 

And the club brought its greenness out to the community when it visited Griffith Park to assist TreePeople^ with their tree care efforts.

The Galaxy’s carbon footprint-reducing efforts, showcased to the 24,931 fans during Protect the Pitch Day, were more successful than their on-field results, as they dropped a 3-0 decision to the Sounders. In fact, the club’s greenness harkened back to happier days, as they sold tote bags from Relan, made from recycled materials from the club’s 2014 MLS Cup Championship banner, which had previously hung inside StubHub Center.

 

NFL AND PHILADELPHIA TEAM UP TO GREEN UP NFL DRAFT

200,000 diehards are expected to descend on Philadelphia as the 2017 NFL Draft comes to The City of Brotherly Love from Thursday’s first round through Saturday’s seventh stanza. According to an April 21 Philly.com story by Frank Kummer, the NFL and city officials, the latter using “what it learned from the Philadelphia Marathon, are aiming for ‘zero waste’ – meaning that at least 90 percent of trash and leftover food does not end up in a landfill.” An army of volunteers are stepping up to bring the plans to fruition at the free NFL Draft Experience festival along a half-mile stretch of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Volunteers, like those shown here at the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon, will help make the 2017 NFL Draft in Philadelphia a Zero-Waste event. (Photo credit: Green Works Philadelphia)

 

“There is going to be an impact on the City of Philadelphia and its environment,” said Jack Groh, director of the NFL’s environmental program. “So we need to step up and do something about it.”

According to Groh, 16 stations with trash, recycling, and composting bins, staffed by volunteers from Keep Philadelphia Beautiful, the Sierra Club, and other groups, will be placed along the Parkway. And all building materials, including carpeting and wood, will be dismantled and donated for reuse.  Extra or leftover food will go to soup kitchens and shelters throughout the area, or it will end up at a compost facility in Fairmount Park. Food donations could exceed the 11,000 pounds given out during the Democratic National Convention in July, officials estimated.

Additional highlights include:

• The league’s purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) equal to the amount  of electricity used to power activities in the Draft Experience site along the Parkway.
• Signs, decorations, lumber, and carpeting will be donated to organizations including Habitat for Humanity and Resource Exchange.  The materials will be remade into such things as whiteboards for classrooms.
• Water bottle refilling stations along the Parkway.
• The NFL and Verizon are putting up $10,000 for urban forestry as part of a matching grant. Eventually, 10 trees will be planted for each of the 253 players drafted in 2017.

The NFL Draft’s sustainability effort is poised to be a winning one. If the Jets picks prove to be as successful, I will be one happy man.

 

^ TreePeople is a two-year LA Galaxy partner that inspires the people of Los Angeles to take personal responsibility for the urban forest.

 

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My Big, Green NFL Draft Idea

The NFL Draft is one of the most popular events on the American sports calendar. Broadcast on both ESPN and the NFL Network, the first round (primetime on Thursday, May 8) now qualifies as “Must See TV”–it easily out-rates MLB and NBA playoff games. And this is for an event where games are not actually being played–teams are simply picking college players with which to fill their rosters. Unfortunately, while the NFL has a stranglehold on America’s remote controls (24 of the 25 most highly rated TV shows in the US in 2013 were NFL games), it is a laggard among the major pro leagues when it comes to sustainability. When one does a Google search for “NFL Draft green”, you get lots of Green Bay Packers results but nothing in the way of making the draft and/or the NFL more sustainable. Well, GSB has a Big, Green Draft Idea that will 1) engage NFL fans in real greening, 2) increase recycling rates at NFL games, and 3) legitimately enhance the NFL’s green image. To the NFL, we say “You’re Welcome!”

 

When, like me, you’re a die-hard fan of the New York Jets (aka Gang Green, owing to their green uniforms), a Big, Green Draft Idea (BGDI) might mean a trade to move up in the draft to grab a particular object of desire, as in 2009 when the Jets traded players and draft picks to the Cleveland Browns to move up and take QB Mark Sanchez of USC. OK, I’m not saying all BGDI are great ideas#. But this post is not about the Jets nor their past (often painful) drafts.

A common reaction among Jets fans at the NFL Draft is stunned disbelief/disgust. (Photo Credit: USA Today)

 

Rather, our BGDI focuses on the NFL and sustainability. And the NFL can certainly do more in that arena. Yes, the 2013 Super Bowl in New Jersey was green in many ways. And several NFL stadiums, like Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, have on-site solar power. But the NFL is alone among the Big 4 domestic sports leagues (MLB, NBA and NHL are the other 3) in not having a Sustainability Director. And, as far as we can tell, it’s not leveraging its biggest asset–its fans–with engagement programs that encourage green behaviors in any significant ways.

So a BGDI is needed, and here goes:

1. All 32 NFL teams participate in a season-long contest to see which fan base can divert the most waste from landfill, via recycling, composting and up-cycling at regular season home games.
2. Differences in stadium capacity and local recycling/composting idiosyncrasies would be controlled for.
3. The fan base that wins earns its team a supplemental draft choice in the 3rd round of the following year’s draft. The fan base that comes in 2nd garners an extra 5th round pick for its club. And 3rd place means a supplemental 7th rounder.

To borrow from a great Guinness ad campaign of 7 years ago, green behavior by fans, actually helping the team for which they root/paint their faces/lose their minds? Brilliant! You would think even climate change deniers/skeptics would put their trash in the right bin!

Now, for those dear readers who are not initiated in the ways of the NFL Draft and/or who have not seen Draft Day, starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner, it consists of 7 rounds in which the 32 teams pick in the inverse order of their finish in the previous season (worst picks first; Seattle, which won the Super Bowl, picks last).  So, there are 234 picks in a draft (32 teams x 7 rounds).  Thus a 3rd round pick would be in the top 100 of all college players picked.  It is, for a team and a fan base, a prized possession. Joe Montana and Curtis Martin were 3rd round picks.

Joe Montana, 3rd round draft pick in 1979 of the San Francisco 49’ers, while playing quarterback for Notre Dame. In GreenSportsBlog’s Big Green Draft Idea, the team whose fan base helps divert the most waste from landfill at home games will earn a supplemental 3rd round pick in the draft. (Photo Credit: UniWatch)

 

In addition to the 234 picks, the NFL adds about 30 more picks to the draft by awarding teams with supplemental (i.e. additional) selections if, basically, they lose more free agents than they sign in the offseason. Those supplemental picks are awarded from the 3rd to the 7th rounds. If you want to learn more about how supplemental picks work, well, you’re out of luck–it’s more complicated than string theory. For our purposes, the key point is this: An extra 3rd round picks is super-valuable (5th and 7th rounders, while less valued than 3rds, are still important). Do you think that qualifies as a BGDI? Let us know!

 

# Truth be told, I was in favor of the trade for Sanchez at the time and, for the first two years of his career with the Jets (2009-10), it looked like a brilliant move as they made the AFC Championship Game in both seasons. But, for a variety of reasons, the wheels fell off from 2011-13 and Sanchez was recently released and picked up by the Philadelphia Eagles to be their backup this season.

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