Nonlinear FC wrote:In general, I would really like the league to eat some shit for a bit. Anytime someone (correctly) criticizes anything, mouthbreathing sportscasters, radio dudes, columnists fire back with "it's still the biggest sport in America, and it's not even close" as if that absolves them of everything.
Very similar to, "yeah but America is still the greatest country in the world!" whenever people point out the US's flaws. These days, you have a lot more people saying, "is it? Is it really, now?"
I agree with this sentiment, and I actually have a financial stake in the league's success in the sense that some of my projects are with the NFL. The changes around the Kickoff event this year (the event being during the day and not televised) cost me six weeks of work, but Super Bowl is the biggest annual project I have (and have had for over a decade), so the well-being of my kids kind of depends on the success of the league (as well as many other things).
To this point, I don't feel the need to not watch (both college and NFL), but I am happy that there is more and more knowledge about what the effects of the sport are and that people are choosing to step aside when they are young (Chris Borland, John Urschel, Su'a Cravens) continue to bring the issues into the light.
A related hope that I have with this is that people will start to see the "meathead" responses to these decisions from football people (coaches, front office people, fans) and realize that those people do not truly care about the well-being of these people and their decisions. I understand a coach gets upset that a starting lineman retires, making his job harder and potentially jeopardizing that job, but this is likely a guy who says, "I love my team", then just turns around and doesn't care as soon as a guy is gone.
I've been kicking around starting a thread called "The End of Football", but I have a lot of thoughts to get down and organized before doing that.