Tag Archives: NFL

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Concussion plague could doom football

I’m not predicting it, but the snowballing of news about concussions among professional football players could signal an end to the game as we’ve known it since its inception.

Former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon — one of the game’s more colorful characters — is suffering from early-onset dementia likely caused by the many hits he took while playing the game.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/jim-mcmahon-opens-up-about-dementia-dan-patrick-contemplated-suicide-nfl-settlement-083113

He’s not alone. Many others have reported suffering similar symptoms. Their ranks are growing right along with the numbers of tragic consequences.

Should the game be declared too dangerous to continue? No. But oh brother, the debate over how to compensate these athletes is just now getting revved up.

The National Football League this week announced a settlement that provides $765 million in relief to battered players. The PBS program Frontline is set to explore the subject in detail in a two-hour special to be shown on Oct. 8 (at 8 p.m., on KACV-TV).

The concussion problem likely isn’t new. It’s been a part of the game since its founding. These days, though, the players are bigger, faster and stronger than ever. They hit harder. Human skulls, however, haven’t gotten more durable. They’re the same as they’ve always been: susceptible to damage caused by repeated blows to the head.

This national discussion is not going to fade away any time soon. Nor should it.

The men who play professional football, it now seems apparent, are putting their lives on the line when they suit up. Yes, they’re big and strong and they play the game likely understanding the consequences of getting hit repeatedly by their equally big and strong colleagues.

That doesn’t make it any easier to hear stories like the one Jim McMahon and many others are telling about their slow decline toward death.

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Sports journalism takes a big hit

ESPN prides itself, we’re led to believe, on its courageous reporting on sports-related issues.

Which brings up the question: Why did the nation’s No. 1 sports network bail on a PBS project that examines the outbreak of concussion-related trauma being suffered by professional football players?

Was it pressure from the NFL, with which ESPN has a long-standing — and highly lucrative — financial partnership? It smells like it.

Frontline is an award-winning documentary series broadcast by PBS. The program, based out of WBGH-TV in Boston, is set to air a two-part series called “League of Denial,” in which it looks at the concussion rate among NFL players and examines whether playing professional football has become hazardous to the health of its participants.

The early indicators are that the concussions are becoming a grave concern.

ESPN was supposed to be a partner in the project. It backed out this past week. ESPN said the NFL applied zero pressure to the network, even though there have been reports of a extremely testy meeting between ESPN and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Two plus two still equals four, correct?

OK, the news isn’t all bad.

Frontline will present the broadcast, even without ESPN’s participation. It airs on Oct. 8 and 15, and will be shown in the Texas Panhandle on KACV-TV, the region’s public television station operating on the Amarillo College campus.

ESPN does its share of in-depth sports journalism, particularly with its “Outside the Lines” specials. They produce occasionally riveting and, if you’ll pardon the pun, hard-hitting examinations of the lives of prominent athletes.

As the network has shown, though, in cratering on the Frontline project, it is capable of missing a tackle or two.

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How ’bout them ’72 Dolphins?

It’s a little late, but it ought to be welcome nevertheless.

President Obama is bringing one of the NFL’s most storied teams to the White House for a decidedly belated congratulatory visit. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are coming to town to be honored in a ceremony that should have occurred oh, about four decades ago.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/08/20/obama_to_give_72_dolphins_a_belated_salute_119645.html

The president at the time of the Dolphins’ historic season — in which they went 17-0, capping it off with a 14-7 win in the Super Bowl over the Washington Redskins — was Richard Nixon. He was vacationing in Florida and professed to be a Dolphins fan. He also had told Redskins coach George Allen that he was rooting for them to win the big game.

One other thing might have kept the president from inviting the Dolphins to the White House. Nixon was fresh off his smashing 1972 re-election victory, but was facing increasing scrutiny over the “third-rate burglary” that occurred the previous June at the Watergate Hotel.

President Nixon had other things on his mind, I reckon, and couldn’t be bothered with saluting the Miami Dolphins’ history-making season.

Barack Obama also is a big sports fan and isn’t bashful about bringing in sports teams or individual athletes to be honored.

I’m quite happy to see him honor the Dolphins. Forty years is a little late, but I’m sure this band of aging former athletes and coaches will enjoy the spotlight once again.

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MLB’s big dog has been hammered

Bud Selig is now officially my favorite major sports commissioner.

Roger Goodell? David Stern? Gary Bettman? Forget about it.

Major League Baseball’s top man has done the right thing by giving Alex Rodriguez — the one-time heir apparent to Barry Bonds as MLB’s so-called all-time home run king — a 211-game suspension. A-Rod is out for the rest of this season and all of 2014, depending on the outcome of his expected appeal. (I say “so-called” because Hank Aaron, whose mark Bonds surpassed, will remain the real HR king in my eyes; he belted 755 of ’em without cheating.)

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/alex-rodriguez-suspended-through-2014-ped-use-new-york-yankees-biogenesis-080513

Indeed, now A-Rod appears headed for another “heir apparent” role as it regards Bonds: the heir to the most soiled reputation among those believed to have cheated their way into baseball’s record books.

What makes this suspension so welcome is that Selig dropped the hammer on one of the game’s biggest stars. He didn’t reserve this harsh punishment for some utility player or pinch hitter. A-Rod has more than 600 home runs, fifth-most in baseball history. He was closing in on 3,000 base hits and a bunch of other standout numbers I don’t care to discuss today.

A-Rod’s sin has been his involvement with the Biogenesis clinic and its alleged dispensing of performance-enhancing drugs, such as human growth hormones, testosterone and other banned substances. A-Rod has been implicated in all of that, apparently with a mountain of evidence to back up the allegations.

Furthermore, Selig reportedly was steamed at Rodriguez’s insistence in calling all the shots in the negotiations with the baseball front office, which Selig would not tolerate.

Selig has demonstrated some serious manliness in standing up to the game’s great players. He’s already suspended Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun — who plays in Selig’s hometown — over the use of banned substances. And today, he handed out significant suspensions to a dozen other players apart from Rodriguez.

It’s that 211-game suspension that stands out, given Rodriguez’s standing among the current players and the fact that it likely means the end of the line for the star who’s approaching 40 — which makes him an “old man” in the world of big league baseball.

Major League Baseball’s commissioner is making an example of those who think they can get away with cheating — and is setting a sparkling example for other commissioners to follow.