Week 8 Fantasy Football: MUST-ADD Waiver Wire Pickups + Buy or Sell

Adam Kaufman, Jacob Camenker, and guest Michael F. Florio break down the top Week 8 fantasy football storylines including waiver wire must-adds.

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The most famous American-born footballer is named Nevada Pierre as of this week.

Don’t forget the name.

As I boarded my American Airlines flight from New York back to South Florida dozens of phones were watching videos and reading stories of this 3-year-old prodigy swerved through defenders — some twice his size — with the soccer ball, scoring multiple goals.

The woman boarding the plane in front of me watched Nevada’s highlight reel over and over before showing it to the person in front of her, whom she seemingly didn’t know.

Then the heart-wrenching, disturbing discussion of why Nevada became famous overnight was brought up.

Police were called to a Winter Park youth soccer match this weekend because Nevada was dominating the game. Parents of the other plays didn’t want him to play anymore, and his parents became upset, according to reports. The park’s director called law enforcement to have Nevada and his family removed from the field, and the I9 league.

“Can you ask someone quickly to get here because they are about to leave,” according to the 911 call. “I just want her [Nevada’s mother] off the property immediately.”

The face a confused Nevada made as he walked over to his parents as they spoke to law enforcement broke my heart.

Nevada seemingly realized he had gotten himself, and his parents in some kind of trouble by excelling in the sport he loved.

The controversy surrounding Nevada’s removal from a youth soccer league shouldn’t become a debate about race because he and his parents are Black. So was the man who called 911. The real failure here is on the part of the adults involved — their inability to resolve conflict, manage bruised egos and find a way to nurture an extraordinary talent. Nevada’s story should be about how we help a prodigy thrive, not how we teach him that his gifts are a problem.

It should be about how does the world pour into Nevada, helping this American-born soccer protege become the best version of himself.

How do we use his painful introduction to the world to help him become the next Lamine Yamal, a former child protege discovered and developed in Barcelona’s youth academy, La Masia, before he turned professional at 15.

Instead, now we are left questioning how this situation escalated so quickly.

Based on the call made to 911 the family was already leaving. So why the need for law enforcement to rush officers to the incident?

And what was the exact incident? Nobody knows that for certain because that seemingly wasn’t caught on someone’s camera phone, or the officer’s body camera.

These stories, these issues are never black or white. There’s plenty of gray in this world.

The fact anyone felt police were needed, or that Nevada couldn’t continue to play in the league, is despicable. End of story!

This incident sends the wrong message about so-called American exceptionalism, but an accurate one.

Why can’t we handle conflict with decorum and respect, like those officers who came to the scene did?

Getting law enforcement involved in how we treat our society’s proteges proves our nation has lost conflict resolution skills.

Nevada’s parents say he was forced out because he was so much better than the competition, many of whom were two years older than him.

Nevada probably doesn’t know how to count, write or read, but he’s already learned people fear and resent his talent.

And his peers are seemingly being taught when they face adversity they should quit, or get someone who is better than them kicked off the team, out the club, or out of school?

Oddly, some on social media are acting like Nevada’s entire goal was to embarrass others during his weekend game.

He was a kid playing a game, a 3-year-old merely exercising the skills he spent hours of his young life perfecting, which his father has documents and shared on social media, in his first team setting.

His parents were obviously proud of him, coaching him from the sidelines, and videotaped it, like most parents do when they are supporting their children in youth leagues.

Now that’s a heinous act? Does everyone other parent who videotapes their children playing youth football, soccer, softball, basketball need to have the police called on them?

Must we create a no video taking policy in youth sports to protect this sensitive, soft generation of children being raising in America’s everyone gets a trophy culture?

Give me the words you would use as a league director, as the police officer to explain to 3-year-old Nevada that what he was doing made other children and their parents scared, and upset the league enough to call the police on his parents.

How about explaining to Nevada that other children don’t want to play with him, and that’s why the league kicked him out without even discussing other options?

I would have cared about this story without ever knowing what Nevada looked like, his level of skill, or the location this dispute took place in.

But this is America’s problem. Not only do we do futbol poorly, but we have become horrendous at conflict resolution, and problem-solving.

I’m betting European, South and Central America club teams and leagues know what to do with Nevada.

I’m hoping some league, maybe La Masia, relocates him and his family to their country and puts this soccer savant in their training academy to help him become the next Venus or Serena Williams, whose talent took those tennis greats from Compton, California, to South Florida, where they polished their skills in tennis academies.

If America can’t embrace and nurture Nevada, the selfless thing to do is put him in an environment that can, and subsequently admitting we’ll never be good enough, or a country that can foster greatness.

That seems a lot easier than aspiring to become one.