A Football Fan's Dilemma

Leigh Steinberg’s recollection of a conversation with a concussed Troy Aikman.

 “Leigh, where am I?” And I said, “Well, you’re in the hospital.” And he said, “Well, why am I here?” And I said, “Because you suffered a concussion today.” And he said, “Well, who did we play?” And I said, “The 49ers.” And he said, “Did we win?” “Yes, you won.” “Did I play well?” “Yes, you played well.” “Did— what does that— and so what’s that mean?” “It means you’re going to the Super Bowl.”

Five minutes later Aikman asked the same questions again. 

The VHS tape, NFL Crunch Course still occupies a space on a shelf near our TV.  We haven’t watched it in years.  It used to be an unofficial tradition to bust it out and watch it on Super Bowl Weekend to get us ready for the spectacle. 

Produced by NFL films, it’s a compilation of vicious hits, frightening in their violence and intensity.  Football fans know what I’m talking about.  It’s when the wide receiver, almost foolhardy in his bravery, goes across the middle and doesn't see the safety about to unload on him; or when the 285 pound linebacker blindsides a quarterback at full speed, jolting the unsuspecting player, sending the ball skyward, causing the player’s head to whiplash as if attached to his body with a spring.  My son, my nephew and I would lean forward in anticipation of each de-cleating.  They would watch, mouths agape, while I told them, in old geezer fashion, that this was real football; the way I remember it when I was their age.  Not this namby pamby, wussy stuff they call football these days.  

I grew up watching NFL Films’ This Week in the NFL, a weekly feature that attracted viewers like me who wanted to see the week’s hardest hits described in the deep tones of John Facenda’s poetic commentary.  With its super slow motion and background music, football seemed artistic, the violence almost benign; a ballet of mayhem.  God, I loved it. 

In the 70’s and 80’s any football fan worth his salt knew the name Mike Webster.  Although only a center Iron Mike epitomized the toughness and grit of pro football.  He was the mainstay of the offensive line for the Pittsburgh Steelers team that won 4 Super Bowls.  In 2002, at age 50, Iron Mike died; his mind and body apparently having simply given up.  The tragedy of his life after football was in stark contrast to the glory of his playing days. His family life crumbled and he spent years living in train stations, bus station, seedy motel rooms and a pickup truck.  The doctor who performed the autopsy noted that the body of the 50 year old Webster more closely resembled that of a 70 year old.  An autopsy of his brain showed that Webster suffered from a neurodegenerative disease that would become known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). 

Iron Mike Webster #52

In 2005, former Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Long, age 45, committed suicide by drinking anti-freeze.  Former Eagles safety Andre Waters suffered from severe depression that he ended by shooting himself in 2006.  He was 44.  After football, former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson was on the road to a successful business career that suddenly unraveled.  Erratic decisions and sudden outbursts of violence cost him his fortune and family.  At age 50 he shot himself.  Duerson’s story was a preview of Junior Seau’s.   The beloved and respected former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers was 43 when he shot himself.  Like Duerson, Seau was a successful businessman, respected in the community, until his behavior suddenly changed causing his personal and business lives to unravel.  Shane Dronett,  Denver Broncos, age 38; Justin Strzelczyk, Steelers, age 36.  Their stories are all similar.  They played football, suffered concussions, suffered from mental and emotional problems and ended their lives.  They also suffered from CTE. 

Just last week former Oakland Raider tight end Todd Christensen died at the age of 57.  A former player dies at a young age and the first thing that comes to mind is CTE.  As it turns out, Christensen died of complications from a liver surgery. 

I learned about CTE, concussions and one of the NFL’s many current image problems in a recent showing of the PBS series Frontline, titled League of Denial.   The show was based the book League of Denial by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru.  Both the book and the show have become the lightning rods for the football concussion discussion.

I guess it was in the late 50’s that I started watching football; Johnny Unitas was at the top of his game, Jim Brown crashing through and over hapless defenders and big Roman Gabriel standing in the pocket shedding would be tacklers.  Televised games were an oddity and they were broadcast in black and white.  A facemask had one or two bars across the front and baseball was the reigning king of American sports.  But I was hooked.  Have been for some 50 years now. 

For years concussions were treated with the same calm as a cut or a bruise.  Announcers would joke about a concussed player drunkenly staggering around as having “got his bell rung.”  Anyone associated with football, from fans to players to coaches to owners to league officials were aware of the football culture which dictated that getting your bell rung was not cause enough to stay off the field even if you weren't sure what planet the field was on.  Watching with friends or family, we would chuckle at a player walking off the field in a daze. 

It’s turned out that concussions aren't a joke.  They’re dangerous and they have long term effects that can result in death.  When I brought this problem up for discussion in social media the argument that I got in return was that football players know what they’re getting into.  It’s a conscious risk that they take.  Listen to sports talk radio enough and you’ll hear that argument over and over from callers.  The problem with that argument is that it just isn't true.

Steve Young's career ended with this concussion

 

Troy Aikman couldn't remember his NFC Championship Game performance

As far back as the nineties, the NFL suspected yet downplayed the seriousness of concussions.  In an interview with David Halberstam, then Commissioner  Paul Tagliabue claimed that concussions occurred once in every three or four games which he explained as 2.5 concussions for every “22,000 players engaged.”   At one point, the NFL flatly denied that playing football causes concussions.  When the league finally accepted that football can lead to concussions it continued to downplay the seriousness, claiming that in many cases players could return to a game after having suffered a concussion.

In 2012 a lawsuit was filed against the NFL by former players, many suffering from dementia and neurodegenerative illnesses.  It was estimated that the suit could cost the league into the billions. Before the current season began the suit was settled for 765 million dollars which for the NFL is pocket money (Estimated NFL revenue in 2025 is 27 billion dollars).  What is just as irksome is the fact that with the settlement, the NFL doesn't have to reveal what it knew and when it knew it.  In the end the most powerful sport in the world fleeced its former employees who made the league a money making juggernaut and it got a clean slate to boot.

And so as I write this with Sunday football in the background, I find myself mired in an uncomfortable moral dilemma.  But then aren’t all moral dilemmas uncomfortable?  Reading League of Denial, I was thoroughly disgusted.  The National Football League is run by owners and league officials.  The owners are billionaires who can treat players as some hybrid of employee and property.  The league itself is concerned with its brand; maintaining an image as America’s game while moving towards international expansion and of course the ceaseless quest for more and more money, because there never, ever is enough money.  And while the players are the indispensable parts, their value lasts only as long as a career that spans on average 3.2 years.   

My discomfort comes from the NFL’s exhaustive and well financed, yet pathetic efforts, to hide some obvious blemishes to the brand.  Had the league not tried for far too many years to deny that concussions are far more common than it would admit to; had the league not downplayed the dangers of concussions; had the league not thrived off of a culture of vicious hits; and had the league not flimflammed the former players, the broken men who brought it the success it now enjoys, in the lawsuit settlement, then I wouldn't find myself in this dilemma. Yet the league did all of that and despite the so called concussion protocols now in place it continues to soft sell the dangers of concussions.  In its persistent efforts to claim football as essentially benign it represents myth as fact.  Remember that 3.2 year career average I mentioned earlier?  The NFL in denying that damningly low number came up with some numerical magic and abracadabra it managed to spin the average career at 11.7 years.  This is why I struggle with football.

The airing of the Frontline documentary on PBS drew 2.2 million viewers, a larger share than the show’s average of 1.5 million but woefully short of a dreadful Monday Night Football game between the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants.  The game was so bad you could call it unwatchable but for the fact that it drew over 13 million viewers.  I chatted up the documentary and encouraged friends to watch.  I know of two who turned it on.  One watched and suggested he’ll watch again.  The other claimed that she was bored and turned it off.  I wonder if it wasn’t really a twinge of uneasiness in her gut that compelled her to bail out.  I wonder if legions of football fans purposely avoided the show knowing that it could plant some uncomfortable seeds. 

Consider that over 24 hours a video of one single hit by Jadeveon Clowney that separated a Michigan player from both his helmet and the ball got 1 million views.  From my perspective the hit looked illegal as Clowney seemed to lead with his helmet.  It was a hit that at one time would've had me slobbering with delight but now causes me to squirm a bit.  But it’s just the kind of hit that football fans don’t want legislated out of the game.  Fans are frustrated with penalties for helmet to helmet contact and targeting.  They’re disgusted with roughing the passer penalties.  They want to see the game played as it was in the 60’s.  This despite the fact that today’s average player is bigger, faster and more well-conditioned than the best players of the 60’s.  That the football violence of the 60’s isn't sustainable isn't the fan’s problem unless it affects his fantasy team.

 Clowney lights up Michigan RB and You Tube hits stats

Should football fans have a moral quandary?  Should they question if it’s right to support a league that treats the men who bring in the cash as dispensable pieces of equipment?  They should.  But they won’t.  By and large fans care less than the owners and the league do about former players.  The fan has less skin in the game.  Those broken down old men have served their purpose as entertainment value and the fan isn't faced with any monetary risk that might one day haunt the league. 

There are the exceptions.  When Junior Seau shot himself the football world was rocked.  Seau seemed to represent all that could be positive about the sport.  He was a star both on and off the field; a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame, a successful businessman and a pillar of the community.  A brief pang of guilt shot through the football world until it was time to kickoff again.  

Mourning Junior

And as for me?  I’m like the alcoholic who rails against drunk drivers.  On Sunday mornings turning on the morning game is as reflexive as ordering a Scotch on the rocks.  I play my fantasy team and like a counterfeit owner view players as commodities.  Writing this it’s dawned on me that I've been a hypocrite for years, ever since my son entered high school and I told him that he wouldn't be playing football; no Ifs, ands or buts.  There are plenty just like me and the National Football League is perfectly happy to accept us.  Just as long as we hypocrites don’t start to outnumber the parents willing to offer up their sons.