I Like Violence
This post is actually about football not a descent into mental illness. However, I must begin with the honest assessment that a game I love is a form of controlled violence. I appreciate a solid hit on an opponent whether it be a tackle or a block. I enjoy the physical domination of my favorite team over its rivals. I also know that the game I love can physically destroy the men who play it.
When you see a NFL player in person, it is often shocking how large and muscular these men are. As a straight female, I admit that one aspect I enjoy now that I didn't as a child is the incredible physical specimens these men turn themselves into. This guys make "buff" a weak term. They are incredible athletes. But this means football is a game in which very fast and strong men ram into each other at top speed. This isn't meant to injure, but it does injure. In ever game, every player knows the next play may be his last. Even those who never suffer "serious injuries" often spend their post-football life dealing with the cost to their bodies.
I post all of this because in the first 3 weeks of the new season we have seen one QB, Trent Green, receive a severe concussion that had him unconscious for more than 10 minutes and, yesterday, another QB, Chris Sims, had to have an emergency splenectomy after his game. He evidently played some part of the game with a ruptured spleen. Luckily, he will recover. At no point during the game did he fail to get up after a play. He simply took such blows that his body broke. And QB is the most "protected" position on the field.
Yet I still love the game. I'll keep watching and living and dying with my team. With all of the violence the game currently has, it has less than when I started watching 40 years ago. Head slaps and spearing are no longer legal. But the game is and always will be controlled violence and very risky. There is no such thing as an overpaid NFL player. Not when their livelihood can be lost in an instant. I can only hope that the players and the league will work to reduce the risk as much as possible and we fans always remember that the "bums" we swear at and call "no good" are receiving a physical punishment that we cannot imagine.
posted by redbarb at 4:10 PM
3 Comments:
Greetings!:
At least my team, the Redskins, seem to have snapped out of their funk this past Sunday, though admittedly it was against the lowly Houston Texans. We Redskins fans hope that Mr. Portis's return will continue to provide a primary catalyst/insentive for further successes, and that whoever was responsible for bringing in our new Offensive CoOrdinator will be vindicated for so doing! I assume it goes without saying that, if last Sunday marked a turn-around for the Burgondy and Gold, that long run by Mr. Poertis, though he did not score on it, will be reckoned as _THE_ play that began that turn-around! And, of course, he would go on to score later! _HAIL_ _TO_ _THE_ _REDSKINS_!!!
J. V.
Football sucks...the violence is the least of it. It is such a slow, overly-complicated game. Stop, start, stop, start...just get on with it already. Bo-ring!
Poster Suzanne, could some of the starting and stopping to which you object be the result of all those commercial breaks? And do they really need to have one following a kick-off after a score since there has already been one after said score? Or could it be that those two breaks are necessary if there was a long drive with no breaks during it? Perhaps I should try to note such when listening in future.
As far as I am concerned, baseball, which I also enjoy, is even slower, and yet you seem to enjoy that at least slightly. And could not the gaps between pitches be reckoned as stops and starts?
If you want something _REALLY_ fast, try hockey!
J. V.
Post a Comment
<< Home