The NFL, first and foremost, is a business. A business engineered by deploying the world’s most athletic specimens in a 100 x 53 ⅓ rectangular arena, and demanding that they stop the ball from entering this endzone, at all costs. We find ourselves in a time 96 years after this barbaric league’s inception - and we have just begun to lay the foundation for a safer game, but that begs the question: is safer good for ratings?
If football is a business, its’ players are commodities. Former Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck describes the player-coach relationship regarding injuries: "There are head coaches who, if you're not playing or practicing, won't talk to you. That's an old-school technique, but, to be honest, I kind of like it. There are also head coaches who'll push trainers to get players back on the field no matter what. But no matter what kind of coach you think you have, you know one thing about him: If you go down at a practice, he will be the kind of coach who orders his team to "move it over ten" or "move it over twenty" so that practice can continue while you're lying on the ground. That is every coach, at every level. They move on if you can't” (Junod).
“Next man up” is a philosophy employed by a majority of the nation’s football coaches. The scary part is that this ideology is met with esteem and pride. Would you be surprised that three-quarters of all tickets to watch this gridiron carnage are purchased by women?
“Your thumb is broken. They won't tell you about it because they need you to keep playing." These words epitomize how the NFL is a business, in which the players act as commodities. Raiders quarterback Marc Wilson was the recipient of this message, uttered by his team doctor at halftime, while getting manhandled by the Monsters of the Midway in the dying embers of 1984 NFL season. Just one year later, the Bears would be Super Bowl Shuffling their way to a championship -- Wilson would be later quoted saying, "I know a lot of guys got carted off that game but playing in the game, I really didn't have a sense that it was that bad” (Cosentino). The conclusion is twofold: First, there is a perpetual wealth of injuries to NFL players. Second, they are not exactly cognizant of this fact, or if they are, do not put much thought into it.
Early practitioners of football dismissed the brutal violence of the game as a shared hardship, endured as an initiation into a fraternal bond. Today, far removed from the ethereal nature of football, players found an alternative way to mask the pain. Painkillers. Hasselbeck goes on to talk about the abuse of prescription painkillers in the NFL:
"A lot of times you don't know exactly when the injury happens, because you're taking drugs like Toradol or another kind of anti-inflam, so you're feeling good. Or maybe you're dealing with a previous injury, like an ankle, and you're taking Toradol, so you're feeling a little bit better, but now all of a sudden everything is feeling a little bit better. Plus, you have the rush of adrenaline — so the injury might hurt a little, but you don't really realize it. You might not feel it till the next day, or you may feel it that night.”
This is different than not feeling your bum shoulder until the day after your annual backyard Thanksgiving football game. This would be like if you hurt your shoulder, and the next day, instead of sitting in a cubicle, you were forced into being a crash-test dummy for Honda.
“Next man up” is a philosophy employed by a majority of the nation’s football coaches. The scary part is that this ideology is met with esteem and pride. Would you be surprised that three-quarters of all tickets to watch this gridiron carnage are purchased by women?
“Your thumb is broken. They won't tell you about it because they need you to keep playing." These words epitomize how the NFL is a business, in which the players act as commodities. Raiders quarterback Marc Wilson was the recipient of this message, uttered by his team doctor at halftime, while getting manhandled by the Monsters of the Midway in the dying embers of 1984 NFL season. Just one year later, the Bears would be Super Bowl Shuffling their way to a championship -- Wilson would be later quoted saying, "I know a lot of guys got carted off that game but playing in the game, I really didn't have a sense that it was that bad” (Cosentino). The conclusion is twofold: First, there is a perpetual wealth of injuries to NFL players. Second, they are not exactly cognizant of this fact, or if they are, do not put much thought into it.
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"A lot of times you don't know exactly when the injury happens, because you're taking drugs like Toradol or another kind of anti-inflam, so you're feeling good. Or maybe you're dealing with a previous injury, like an ankle, and you're taking Toradol, so you're feeling a little bit better, but now all of a sudden everything is feeling a little bit better. Plus, you have the rush of adrenaline — so the injury might hurt a little, but you don't really realize it. You might not feel it till the next day, or you may feel it that night.”
This is different than not feeling your bum shoulder until the day after your annual backyard Thanksgiving football game. This would be like if you hurt your shoulder, and the next day, instead of sitting in a cubicle, you were forced into being a crash-test dummy for Honda.
* * *
An anonymous NFL veteran said: “Your pain threshold is used to decide what quality of football player you are, and what quality of person. Injuries are used as a gauge. And I've done it, too. Many times, I've been battling through injuries, soreness, or pain, and I've seen a young guy come off the field for something minute. And I'm thinking, What a pussy — let's get a guy in there who's tougher."
Or, as Ryan Clark says: "I don't mention every injury. I don't complain. And I don't want the person next to me doing it either (Junod).
Among NFL circles, there exists a narrative that players should be willing to sacrifice their bodies because the compensation is exorbitant. This mindset permeates discussions of collegiate athletics, elucidating society’s belief in the myth of “amateur athletics.” Is it ludicrous to think that athletes making millions of dollars in revenue for their universities don’t even receive lifetime health care. For a kid to dedicate his life to one particular craft, go to college on the merit of that craft, and then be disposed of when he gets hurt and nobody can pay for his medical bills is wrong. NFL executives groupthink mirrors the NCAA’s view of SEC-football players, “cha-ching.”
This would not be such a hot-button issue if the NFL had an effective system for dealing with player injuries. According to a 2013 Esquire article chronicling NFL injuries, “For players, though, injuries are a day-to-day reality, indeed both the central reality of their lives and an alternate reality that turns life into a theater of pain. Experienced in public and endured almost entirely in private, injuries are what players think about and try to put out of their minds; what they talk about to one another and what they make a point to suffer without complaint; what they're proud of and what they're ashamed by; what they are never able to count and always able to remember” (Junod).
Just watch any NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony -- it’s participants diverse in their collection of maladies and afflictions. But according to the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center, “Of all the public health and safety issues connected with football, brain trauma is the one that grabs the most attention. It has compelled college and NFL officials to quickly change the rules of the game and to adopt an emphasis on player safety more so than ever before.” The disease in question is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). The NFL first responded to increasing scrutiny of concussions in 1996.
Since the league has changed rules and funded research into helmet technology and tackling techniques to dampen criticism. In addition, the league penalizes hits to the head against “defenseless receivers” and quarterbacks. Second, they penalize a player who launches himself helmet-first against another player anywhere on the field. Lastly, they regulate onsides kicks so that an even number of players must be on each side of the kicker (Hanley). It was not until 2010 that the NFL laid down the foundation for a league in which targeting the head of any player is strictly prohibited.
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This pervades into persona life to when “some ex-players express bitterness over how fans who were so eager to buy them dinners and drinks while they were playing suddenly aren’t so interested in them” (Barlow). The cultural justifications do not end there. As noted in my Behind the Facemask essay, Leonard Koppett created the seven cultural attributes for sports -- exemplifying the vicarious experience fans experienced, especially for football. The traits he characterized as the propulsive agent in the 1920’s: “Vicarious: Violence, Triumph, Second-guessing, and Patriotism. This is why football became so popular on radio and and film -- Hollywood amplified the american dream life of ecstasy and violence, creating fresh myths for decades” (7). Many of the elements are still magnetic forces drawing fans to the stadium and living room alike.
Perhaps the reduction of violence has lead to decreased ratings. It certainly has not lead to a reduction in injuries -- percolating all the way down into youth sports. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, each year, more than 750,000 Americans report injuries sustained during recreational sports, with 82,000 involving brain injuries. In fact, brain injuries cause more deaths than any other sports injury. Football is responsible for more than 250,000 head injuries in the United States. In any given season, 10 percent of all college players and 20 percent of all high school players sustain brain injuries (Monroe). When asked if league officials’ thinking regarding CTE has evolved, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league has “embraced research, embraced technology when it comes to the safety of our players. We always believe in getting better.” A former defensive lineman at Harvard and a former WWE wrestler, says the league’s gift “demonstrates that they sincerely want to address the issue and be part of the solution.” Concussions and head blows from his athletic days, he says, have saddled him with headaches, memory problems, and depression (Stephen). This begs the question: would you take $1.9 million (average NFL salary) to accept this sadomasochistic job?
Works Consulted
"Examining Media Contestation of Masculinity and Head Trauma in the National Football League." Academia.edu - Share Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2016.
Barlow, Rich. "NFL Gives $1M to BU Center for Athlete Brain Study | BU Today | Boston University." BU Today. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
Monroe, Heather. "The American Association of Neurological Surgeons." Sports-related Head Injury FAQ. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
Junod, Tom. "Theater of Pain." Esquire. 18 Jan. 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2016
Stephen J. Nicholas, James A. Nicholas, Calvin Nicholas, Jennifer R. Diecchio, and Malachy P. McHugh. The Health Status of Retired American Football Players: Super Bowl III Revisited. Am J Sports Med October 2007 35 1674-1679; published online before print May 21, 2007
Cosentino, Dom. "What It Was Like To Play In The Most Violent NFL Game Ever." Deadspin. N.p., 27 Dec. 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
Brown, Robert S. "Sport and Healing America." Society 42.1 (2004): 37-41. Web.
Hanley, Richard. “Lecture Twenty-Two.” 05 Dec. 2016. 80-85.
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