Football, TV and movies to start the week

Football, TV & movies on the first weekday of October.

Once again Sunday the spotlight was on NFL teams and players during the playing of the national anthem and they responded in a variety of ways from players kneeling to teams standing and locking arms while the song was being played.

This just a day after President Trump urged all players in a tweet to stand during the anthem as the debate over the protests continues.  Maybe the most interesting response came from the San Francisco 49ers who lined up in two rows of 30 with the front row kneeling and the second standing behind them with all 60 holding a hand over their heart.

It does appear less players took a knee this week then last when much of their anger was aimed at President Trump’s negative comments about them.

All last week I had to deal with those who wanted to talk about the season premiere of “This Is Us” which I knew I would not get to watch until the weekend.  The wildly popular NBC drama did not disappoint its fans with the first episode of season #2 when it finally got around to telling you how Jack died….or did it?

The final scene of the family’s home destroyed by fire gave us a hint but not a conclusion which I don’t think we’ll get to much later in the year.

There has not been much in the movies that I’ve had a real desire to see for a while but the next few months should give us some really good ones.  Let’s start with “Stronger” which we saw over the weekend and would clearly give it two thumbs up.  Jake Gyllenhaal is tremendous as Jeff Baumann who lost both his legs from the explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013.

Baumann became the symbol of “Boston Strong” from the iconic photo of him being helped by “the man in the hat” and the movie does a great job of telling the story with Gyllenhaal certain to earn an Oscar nomination.

The Jets are 2-2. The Giants 0-4.  Who could have imagined that?