Is a defanged NFL a contradiction?

I’ve been reading about the 24 year-old NFL player, veteran of just one season, deciding to get out while the getting’s good. It was a very good first year and the young man has what looks like a great career ahead of him. But he’s been paying attention to the concussion story that’s emerged in the past few years and has decided to trade the future millions for the remainder of his marbles. So far in his young career (including high school and college) he’s only had a few concussions.

The same news story cited another example of youth desertion: a 27 year- old who made $10 million last year deciding he can eke out a life on that and doesn’t need to risk his health to pile up more.

The news story goes on to talk about the NFL’s attempt to reform itself in the face of the media attention to concussions. Already a controversial part of watching games on TV are the attempts to enforce new rules to protect heads and joints. In every game numerous important plays, sometimes the whole game, are ruined by questionable, impossible-to-make penalty calls, disgusting TV announcers and viewers alike.

It’s a question: Can football reform itself?

The NFL is trying to make the game safer; but everyone seems to sense the contradiction: the danger seems, if not what draws fans, in any case inherent in the game. It’s not kill-or-be-killed as in bullfighting, where the risk the bullfighter takes is the essence of the sport. It’s not as clearly a contradiction as, say, boxing, in which the best move a player can make, a knockout, is by definition a concussion.

But the game is all about the clash of immoveable object being challenged by irresistible force. Change that and you lose most of the game. Probably touch football could be made into a bigtime sport, if it came to that, and that’s probably what it would take to make football better for players’ health.

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