The 18 game season is "...a fait accompli"
There are so many things wrong with this decision it's hard to know where to begin.
- It's not enough for the owners to threaten a lockout (and don't mistake this comment to mean the players are blameless if it does come to that), they're threatening a lockout AND endangering the welfare of the players for 2 extra games a season. If the players are smart, they will demand expanded rosters in the next collective bargaining agreement since the owners are determined to force 2 more games down their throats.
- This is a minor point, but to a math-inclined avid follower of brackets and scheduling, the NFL is perfect right now. 8, 4 team divisions, where of your 16 games 6 are played against the 3 other teams in your own division, 4 are played against all of the teams in 1 of the other 3 divisions in your conference, 4 more are played against 1 of the 4 divisions in the other conference, and the final 2 games are played against one team from each of the 2 divisions in your conference you haven't played yet, based on where you finished the previous season in your division. There's no room for 2 more games, it currently works out perfectly with 16 games.
- There hads been much talk of the increased awareness of concussions (outside of Philadelphia at least) and the possible links to dementia and other long-term brain problems later in life. That's wonderful, but this stance of forcing the players to play 2 more regular season games while the studies and heightened awareness are just beginning demonstrates that the owners are talking out of both sides of their mouths. I've seen pro football compared to the gladiator fights of Roman times, and I have to say, the comparison has merit. Sure, the players are wll compensated for their work as opposed to being slaves, but the owners will take watever liberties they please with the players' physical condition to make a couple of extra bucks. They dress it up nice, but look at the retired players trying to increase their pensions to pay for their replacement knees and hips and tell me it's more than window dressing.
This is part of a greater concern for me. I love football. I don't apologise for occasionally spending Sundays sitting on my couch watching 1 game, then a second, then the highlights, and then a third. I don't apologize for looking for ways to stream Seahawks games online, as I cannot get DirectTV and thus have no less illicit way to see the games. One of my bigger regrets is not ever having played football when I was younger (not because I think I'd have gone pro, but because I love the game so much). But I'm growing more and more worried as time goes on that the game I love is too much of a bloodsport. I've always known football was a violent sport with the potential for serious injury, we see torn knee ligaments, snapped ankles, even fractured arms with some regularity. It's part of the game. But hiding in the background is the more sinister story. Concussions, and what they become when players tell no one about them and play through them repeatedly. When Chris Henry tragically dies last year, studies showed he had serious brain trauma, and the only known cause was playing football. He wasn't 75, or 60, or even 40. He wasn't even retired.
He was 26.
Henry's not the only one who has been found to have brain trauma, he's just the youngest public case showing football might actually be too violent. I read a column a few months back essentially asking, "Can we enjoy football and still call ourselves human beings?" At the time, I thought the article too sensationalist, and I'm not at a point where I feel guilty for loving football as I do, but I'm starting to wonder what to think in the back of my brain.
I'm not quitting my football fandom, but I am having some second thoguhts about the sport. I was 110% sure that if my child wanted to play tackle football, I was going to let him try it. Now? I'm not sure I'm willing to do that, until I see more of where the current research leads.
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