recently president obama and our colleague at nbc sports, bob costas both said if they had a young son now, they would steer them away from playing football. >> yeah. and then last night an ugly incident in the nfl's national thursday night game, after ripping the helmet off an opponent, an indianapolis colt head-butts the helmetless player. unbelievable. add it all up and you have a league that has high-end sponsors with a growing image problem. joining us to talk more about it is vi, former nfl player and now sports director and patrick, sports contributor for forbes. thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> how badly has the nfl's image been hurt over these recent controversies? >> maria, from the moment one arrives in the national football league, they tell you, you've got to protect god, country and the shield. the shield, all of us who played in the nfl often refer to the nfl in admiration, sometimes cynically the shield because that's the logo of the nfl. they don't want to do anything that would besmirch the image of the league. i'm telling you, they're in damage co

harwood and robert costa. up to the insurance commissioners, up to the insurance companies themselves. do you think canceled policies will be restored in any bulk size? >> probably not. this is really an administrative mess. one company has said that they are going to try to do it, florida bluecross. most other companies are having a good time with this. this is nothing more than the president throwing the hot poe pat toe about cancellations back to the health insurance companies. the insurance companies, to do this, only have 31 days to right the ship here. this is coming from the president who built healthcare.gov in three years and it doesn't work and he's telling the insurance industry that in 31 days, because december 15th is the deadline, that they've got to reverse all of this. they've got to send a letter to the policyholder, tell them the difference between their policy they have now and obama care. they have to send it through the u.s. mail. they have to give the policyholder time to make a decision.

. >> robert costas, let me go to you. we have early numbers in virginia. why is cuccinelli going to lose, bob? >> i think cuccinelli -- >> if he does. if he does. >> when. >> it looks like cuccinelli is going to lose. i think it was because he was not able to seize owe bomb wra care at the 11th hour as an issue that could an him in mate his voters and base. he struggled to get some kind of coherent message. >> and the shutdown issue hurt him a lot. didn't it. >> a lot of people look at polls and say it didn't hurt him. when you look at the demographics in northern virginia, a lot of federal employees. that sometimes does trickle down into a state like virginia. >> yeah, go ahead. >> i wanted to shift over back to new jersey because i think chris christie is your worst nightmare. he's a guy who's a trttracting lot of groups. he's going to come out looking great. a new kind of republican, steve. that's the basic deal. he knows how to make deals and cross the aisle without giving up his principals. so do you feel chris christie is your toughest opponent? >> h