In light of Roger Goodell speaking before Congress on concussions, I wanted to make sure everyone read Malcolm Gladwell's piece from the New Yorker with great information on concussions and is able to make a connection between football and dogfighting. He includes stories about Kyle Turley, Michael Vick and neuropathology. He provides plenty of data and support that leads to the following quote:
"But a football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too. "
It seems like Gladwell concludes that the current format of football cannot properly protect the players from concussions, almost regardless of technological advances in helmets. Are you ok supporting football, knowing how much damage the players are doing to themselves? Is an enlightened football fan any better than Michael Vick?
The NFL is one of the only league that does not guarantee the player contracts, which basically means they can sign a player then cut him without pay.There is always a big uproar when a player signs a new contract and what the general public doesn't understand is that the only money that the player is guaranteed to see is his signing bonus. I have a huge problem with how the NFL does business and how they are always painted in a good light. The owners of each NFL team and the commissioner are getting away with not protecting their players and its absolutely ridiculous. The average NFL player plays just 3.52 seasons and loses two to three years off his life expectancy for every season played. Every time a NFL player is involved in a tackle, its physically the equivalent of being in a car wreck between 30-40 mph. While U.S. life expectancy is 77.6 years, the average for NFL players is 55. Every thing that I stated above can easily be verified with a simple google search. I'm going to stop know b/c I'm getting carried away - I know what Mike Vick did was horrible, but the NFL is slowly killing men. The really sad part is that they are KNOWINGLY doing this. They need to invest more $ in better protection gear, and integrate more rules so you don't have Linemen that weigh over 300Lbs....their avg life is 52.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry...we like getting carried away. We actually started a discussion on the economic structures in the NFL, NBA, and MLB where I took the opposite side of the debate. Acknowledging that NFL players have such a short career, I am in favor of the signing bonus and non-guaranteed salary because the alternative, such as the guaranteed contracts provided by the NBA limit the competitive quality of the league. Trades aren't made for NBA team to get better, they are made to save money on guaranteed contracts of guys who can no longer contribute to a team. I won't reiterate all the same arguments I made in the previous Post, but I will add a new thought.
ReplyDeleteThomas Friedman discusses in The World Is Flat (which we also discussed) how there are certain abilities a business needs for an economy to grow quickly and effectively. In addition to being able to start a business quickly (regulation and licensing need to be as quick as initial funding) a failing business must be able to close quickly as well. This allows resources to be better allocated. Another key is that businesses need to be able to fire ineffective employees. When an employee isn't or can't do the job he is paid for, the employer needs to be able to terminate employment for the business to grow effectively.
So back to my question, not that you are enlightened to the casualties of the NFL, do you feel superior to Michael Vick et. al. who fight dogs?
I do feel superior to Mike Vick because I am not fighting dogs, and he did. However, I really question why the NFL is asleep at the wheel on this issue. Do they think that by investigating it and setting up a comprehensive and appropriately large fund to study and care for victims of this subconconcussive head trauama that they will be drawing more attention to the problem? Are they afraid of that?
ReplyDeleteBuzz, when I heard you first start making the guaranteed contracts argument I thought where you were going with it was here - these owners willingly take money off the table for underperforming or even injured players (one can stretch this to the dogfighting owner taking advantage of his dogs here if one wants), but none of this "money saved" at the expense of these players is reinvested in eventually protecting their health. The latter point you did make, and I totally agree with.
So why not? Why isn't the NFL the single biggest contributor to this type of research and why don't they have the single biggest trust set up to protect and care for their ex-players after retirement? Aaron, what is your take?