Posted on 01/31/2016 9:12:38 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
We just completed another regular season of NFL football. Now let’s see if we can make it the last such season ever played. In its current state, professional football is immoral and we as a society should end its existence.
I imagine some fans of American football felt their hackles rise upon reading that. “Immoral†is a strong word, impossible to type from anywhere other than the saddle of a very tall horse, which isn’t the most comfortable seat for me.
I ate foie gras with Christmas dinner last week and enjoyed it immensely. I know that its production involves torturing ducks, which I think is wrong. In eating it, I am putting my own pleasure over the wellbeing of another living creature.
So I don’t take the moral high ground lightly. But I value human life more than avian life, so I will continue to scold those of you who put the pleasure you derive from watching football (and in so doing, paying money to the NFL, propagating its immoral practices) above the wellbeing of the players you’re watching play.
The damage football players suffer need not be debated at this point. The new Will Smith movie, Concussion, is based on one of the many books detailing the mountain of scientific evidence proving that the sport shortens lives.
Efforts to make it safer with better equipment will not work, because the damage happens inside the players’ skulls, when the brain sloshes around and smashes against its bone casing.
It’s the speed and power with which players ram their helmeted heads into other players that’s the problem. The game as it is played today kills the people who play it, period.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Bry is a Yank.
No, thats from watching NFL and esp. MLB
Spot on, sir.
The more America sees of the sport, the less they will be enamoured of padded handball.
Soccer is 90m, rugby 80m. Soccer is at most 120m with extra time and penalties, and that’s only in semis and finals.
That's something I would like to know the answer to. Why to taxpayers get stuck with the bill for the stadiums and then have to pay insane amounts to the billionaires to get to go in and then pay even more insane amounts for a warm beer?
New Jersey boy in fact, now Brooklyn.
A World Cup.
And yearly ‘test matches’ between the top nations. England, India, Pakistan, W Indies, Sri Lanka, SA, Australia and NZ.
I was kind of waxing sarcastic - I prefer (when I had to watch it) Australian rules footie. I am a supporter of the Brisbane Bronco’s and the Bombers (have the team shirts and caps).
Oh, was it a Bryson article? He’s an ass who sucks up to British elites by running down America. Standard operating procedure for expats. He made his bones with one of his first books that absolutely trashed this country. Now that he’s rich and fat, he has apologized for it. Too late! He also never cut his pal in on the profits of his Appalachian Trail book - the guys lives in abject poverty.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about rugby. But if our players are getting all those nasty concusses, I’d say it was hardly a sissy’s game. They’re our gladiators!
Currently watching Rumpole of the Bailey on dvd.
Me too, I actually don’t mind gridiron, I just cant help poking the sports bear. Mr Bry is one of you. Not a snotty Limey.
No, not Bill Bryson. Whom I quite like, at least his 90s books.
The NFL isn’t sissy, nor imo is it the hardest as boasted by its fans. In fact I’d say ice hockey is tougher in N America. I love my rugby and may be biased, but imo the latter is tougher. I know: I played both when younger. Both are tough.
Good series. Started to repeat it on a satellite channel here in the wee hours.
In name only.
He’s a pansy no matter where he was born.
L
Yeh, ever so often some nanny has to come up with banning some sport or other. A while back there was talk of banning school soccer as too violent.
OK, I’m still learning. So football players are larger, faster, and meaner than they were generations ago; combine that with the advance of protective gear technology and you’ve got a recipe for a huge increase in concussion injuries.
If that’s the case, no argument here. But it does appear to me that most college footballers are not the same size as the armored behemoths of the NFL.
The other factor is of course multimillion big bucks and again, it becomes difficult to criticize the dangers of American football both amateur & professional, without sounding like a soccer loving European socialist.
What indeed can be done about the tragic increase in football injuries? Real question.
Agreed. But I don’t want this thread to turn into an attack on the UK.
I do think there should be weight limits for players, no more than 250 pounds.
Honestly, I don’t know what can be done. You take these man-giants, armor them up, and crash them into each other. I suppose you could reduce the giant-factor by limiting steroids and HGH, and you could reduce the armor-factor by reducing the armor . . . but that’s about all.
To be clear...Are you for abolishing football?
The only time I watched a soccer match was during some finals and Italy was playing. I heard about them but it wasn’t until I actually watched them play. It was the most hilarious game I ever saw.
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