Hopefully Football Will Go Away
Because it's too harmful:
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell might have been grateful for the deflation controversy because it distracted from what otherwise have been the season’s two dominant storylines: the league’s reluctance to discipline players who commit domestic violence and its failure to protect its players from brain damage. But Goodell didn’t need the help. Every thinking fan must, in order to enjoy any NFL game, consent to participate in a formidable suspension of disbelief. We must put aside our knowledge that nearly every current NFL player can expect to suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease that leads to memory loss, impaired judgment, depression, and dementia.
Football players are also four times more likely both to die from ALS (a fact that Goodell, despite participating in this past year’s ALS ice-bucket challenge, refuses to acknowledge) and to develop Alzheimer’s disease. An NFL player can expect to live twenty years less than the average American male. The average NFL career lasts 3.3 years. By that measure, each season costs an NFL player about six years of his life. Football fans, in other words, must ignore the fact that we are watching men kill themselves.
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2 comments:
How about if we take away the helmets and pads
A common misperception in this commentators opinion.
The shock that other peoples views are different from his own. He may find football foolish( as I do ) but many would trade half their lives for a season or two in the nfl. The fame, glory and money is worth it to many. The commentator cannot comprehend that others see things differently than he does and that their views are just as valid as his.
As for the risks, no one makes anyone play the game. Players know that going in and as the saying goes, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
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