The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

With the Cincinnati Bengals set to face the Los Angeles Rams at the $5 billion SoFi Stadium in Super Bowl LVI, politically astute NFL enthusiasts in The Bahamas can see faint parallels between the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government and the team representing the NFC.

With a 12-5 record in the 2021 season, the Rams and its general manager, Les Snead, mortgaged its long-term future and sustainability in order to get to the Super Bowl, when the team traded away two first-round picks (2022 and 2023); a 2021 third round pick and its former quarterback, Jared Goff, for 33-year-old Matthew Stafford.

Stafford played for 12 seasons for the Detroit Lions, who drafted him as the first overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft.

With just $5m in available cap space, Los Angeles will be hard-pressed to retain the services of outside linebacker Von Miller, corner back Darious Williams and possibly wide receiver Odell Beckham.

While Stafford is playing on a five-year $135m deal, defensive tackle Aaron Donald is on a six-year $135m contract, with $86.9m guaranteed.

With elite free agents Andrew Whitworth, Beckham, Leonard Floyd; coupled with the blockbuster trades for Stafford and cornerback Jalen Ramsey, the Los Angeles Rams fit the very definition of a rental team, with its unorthodox approach to building its roster being lauded by some and scoffed at by others.

Whatever one’s opinion of Snead and head coach Sean McVay, their gamble has produced a legit Super Bowl contender in the Los Angeles Rams, although I suspect that the chickens will eventually come home to roost, considering that Stafford is now 34 years old.

With that being said, what are the similarities between the PLP and the Rams?

I believe they can be seen in Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis’ shrewd strategy in dealing with the Fourth Estate.

Since the PLP’s lopsided general election win, the governing party has employed Clint Watson, who formerly hosted Eyewitness News’Beyond the Headlines - a programme that proved to be a thorn in the side of the Free National Movement government of Dr Hubert Minnis.

Subsequent to the hiring of Watson at the Office of the Prime Minister as press secretary, it has been reported in one particular pro-PLP news site that three journalists, once employed at Our News, are now at the Office of the Prime Minister and two other government ministries respectively.

Additionally, it has been reported that former Guardian Radio talk show host Nahaja Black has been employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work at its Canadian office.

Obviously, the PLP offered these talented journalists upward mobility and lucrative deals their former employers in the private sector simply could not match.

The fact that they would all leave the private sector for presumably five-year jobs is evidence that they were all given offers they simply could not refuse.

The private media industry cannot compete with the government financially. Each year, the government doles out millions in subventions to ZNS.

It helps that the government has a massive advantage from a revenue standpoint, as it collects well over $1 billion in taxes annually.

These hirings are being interpreted as Davis building a bulwark of defense in his public relations strategy in protecting his administration from the Fourth Estate, which has taken successive governments to the woodshed.

Davis is well aware of the public relations bludgeoning the media inflicted on the Minnis, Christie and Ingraham administrations.

Rather than engaging the Fourth Estate head on, hire professional journalists who know the ins and outs of the media industry.

Let them deal with their former media colleagues. These hirings might be costly, but they are strategic nonetheless.

This reminds the writer of the Rams going on an unsustainable hiring binge to compete in the NFC West - something they struggled to do with Goff under centre.

Hence, the acquisition of Stafford during the off season.

Again, the hiring of the journalists was a stroke of genius from a political standpoint for the PLP, although the vexing issue of an ever-expanding government coupled with the $10 billion national debt is now being perceived as being placed on the back burner, notwithstanding the formation of the Private Sector Debt Advisory Committee.

Moreover, the relevance of the Bahamas Information Services and the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas will be questioned, now that the Davis administration seems to be putting in place public relations officers in many of the government ministries.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama

February 13, 2022.