There are those who so badly crave attention that they behave badly, on the principle that even bad publicity is superior to no publicity.
In the age where status is determined by the number of “likes” and the number of “followers,” the old Andy Warhol adage about everyone having 15 minutes of fame has shrunk to the extent that those who do not warrant 15 minutes frequently content themselves with 15 seconds.
Young athletes (disclosure: to us, they are all young), embody this philosophy to the degree that an NFL player on a bad team recently exuded bad form and “retired” during halftime.
The player in question was Vontae Davis, whose misfortune it is to play on the Buffalo Bills, a team so mired in mediocrity that Davis was not willing to stick around to collect on the $US 5 million Buffalo is paying him.
Davis went in a halftime of a game where Buffalo went into the main break trailing the Los Angeles Chargers 28 – 6.
He said nary a word to his teammates. He simply gathered up his belongings and left the premises.
Davis was a veteran of nine full seasons, three with the Miami Dolphins commencing in 2009 and six with the Indianapolis Colts from 2012 – 2017. As a defensive back, his most significant statistic was his 22 interceptions. He had four seasons with his high water mark of four interceptions. That number would indicate that he was either not that special, or he was so intimidating that opposition quarterbacks avoided throwing in his direction.
“Never heard of it, never seen it [before],” Bills linebacker Lorenzo Alexander said after the game. “It’s just completely disrespectful to his teammates.”
Not teammates only, but to athletes in any code and to fans anywhere. He could at least have shown the courtesy of waiting until the game was over, but then again, it could be suggested that his contributions to any NFL club were things of the past, with his last decent season being 2015.
