For nearly 4 full days now, I have resisted writing about what happened to Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills. I wanted to see if there would be improvement in his condition (which there has been); or, to put it politely, not; and, either way, to see what the NFL establishment would do about it.
He was taken to the University of Cincinnati Hospital, following his collapse on the field during this past Monday night's game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium (formerly Paul Brown Stadium) in Cincinnati.
He attempted to tackle Bengals receiver Tee Higgins, but was hit hard. He was able to get up under his own power, but, within a couple of seconds, fell to the turf. I can't tell from the clip how much the hit had to do with what happened, because I can't tell what happened. It could have been something that would have happened anyway.
Yesterday, after having been intubated, he awakened, and showed no signs of neurological damage. He is breathing on his own. It looks like he is out of the woods. Whether he will ever play again is doubtful.
The game, which was in the 1st quarter, has been officially suspended, a 1st in NFL history. Despite the Playoff implications, the NFL has accepted that the player's life and condition are more important. The League will adjust its Playoff schedule depending on where the Bills and Bengals end up being seeded after this weekend's games. The Bills have clinched the AFC Eastern Division, and the Bengals are likely to win the AFC Northern Division; either could be the top seed in the AFC Playoffs, and thus receive the only bye in the 1st round.
It's not just the injuries. It's not just ripping the fans off with taxpayer-funded stadiums that these billionaires can afford to build themselves, and never miss the money. Ticket prices are exorbitant. So are parking prices. So are concession prices. God forbid your kid wants a jersey or another thingamabob with the team's logo on it.
Someone once pointed out that, with the TV revenue involved, all 16 NFL teams playing home games in a given weekend could keep the fans out, have official attendances of zero, and still make a profit for the week. Because the fans would still watch on television.
Let the record show that I wrote that before COVID proved it true. I continued:
And then there's the perception that the games are rigged. More than any other North American sports league, the NFL has its officials called into question...
NFL fans can't trust the team owners, or the officials, or the League office. And the players are getting killed. Not immediately: While there have been 5 deaths as a result of on-field play in the NFL's 100-year history (counting the AFL), there hasn't been one since Chuck Hughes of the Detroit Lions in 1971. But retired players are dying, and some not dying yet but suffering terribly, from the effects of their playing.
It's actually been 4 players killed. The others have been Stan Mauldin of the 1948 Chicago Cardinals, Howard Glenn of the 1960 New York Titans (Jets), and Stone Johnson of the 1963 Kansas City Chiefs. Mack Lee Hill of the 1965 Chiefs is sometimes counted, but he died in surgery 2 days after an injury. But even if it is only 4, that doesn't reduce the point. I continued:
But we now know things about football that we didn't know before. And then there are the things that we did know, but didn't want to admit. Football changes people. Not just those contractually involved. Fans change.
I attended 18 Phillies home games at Veterans Stadium. Aside from the stadium's bowl sometimes trapping the heat, the team often being bad, and that artificial turf being hideous, my experiences there were good ones. Only once did I ever have a problem with the home fans, and it was a minor, tolerable thing.
I attended 1 Eagles home game there. It was, if you'll pardon the pun, a whole different ballgame. Eagle fans have a reputation for being among the roughest in the League. It is deserved.
Compare Oakland fans for an A's game, where they're passionate, but mostly sane; and for a Raiders game, where they're animals.
Even in the college game, fans get like that. Vandalizing your arch-rival school's statues. Using the kind of language you would never use in polite company. One University of Alabama fan was so mad over losing the "Iron Bowl" to arch-rival Auburn University that he poisoned a pair of trees in downtown Auburn that had become a focal point for the AU community.
So far, we have yet to see an NFL fan do anything like this. But we have seen gun massacres in America. Many of them. How long will it be before a fan takes his frustrations out on fans of his rival team? How long before such a fan drives into the parking lot, whips out an AR-15, and guns down tailgate partiers?
It hasn't happened. But don't tell me it can't.
Maybe the 100th Season is time to come to a painful conclusion: That the National Football League is doing more harm than good, and that the money being made off of it is no longer worth it.
Shut the NFL down. Celebrate this 100th Season, and then shut the League down. Let kids play football in high school and college. And them make them look for work. Let high school and college be what they were always meant to be: Preparations for adult life.
This will not be a popular idea. Too many people have invested too much -- financially and/or emotionally -- to give up pro football.
But it needs to happen. For the players' sake. If your last game is a college bowl game when you're 22, you stand a much better chance of being able to think and move well in your 50s than you do if your last game is an NFL Playoff game when you're 32, or 37, or 40.
The NFL doesn't need to have a 200th Anniversary. Or a 150th. Or a 125th. Or even a 110th.
Let the NFL's 100th Anniversary be its last.
In this, the NFL's 103rd season, my feelings have not changed. If anything, they have deepened.
So here's the best-case scenario: The Bills rebound from this awful occurrence, and give Western New York, which has been hit truly hard the last year, with 2 deadly Winter storms and a racist gun massacre at a supermarket, a lift they could really use: A Super Bowl win.
And then the NFL gets shut down.
It will never happen, of course. There's too much money involved. Not just because the owners are too greedy, but because they have done too good a job of addicting the fans.
It's time for an intervention. And rehab.
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