After a season in which the NFL endured a battery of safety
allegations amid the ever prominent fiery opposition to rule changes, the
league is now in the midst of a new and potentially colossal development. The once exalted defensive mind, Gregg Williams, whose coaching was one of the most integral components of the 2009-10
Super Bowl season in New Orleans, is now the face of what many fear is a
“Bounty” system that permeates throughout the league. Williams has reportedly orchestrated a clandestine system
with his defensive personnel through which players were offered cash prizes for
injuring opposing offensive players.
NFL players, coaches, correspondents, and seemingly everyone
in the blogosphere have been weighing in on the matter. There are the extremists. New
Orleans should be stripped of their Super Bowl. Or, on the other side, this
has been going on for as long as there has been football, no big deal. Then there are those more akin to my
take. Do we really think a few
tens of thousands of dollars is enough to get people making millions to do
something they may be doing already? Williams’ bounty system, which, at its highest point, was about 50
grand, existed to motivate his players to engage at an intense level.
We are a sports society that constantly strives to make
comparisons. Is LeBron the next
Jordan? Is Peyton better than
Brady? And now, the most recent
one: Is this worse than the original __________Gate, which is kind of like
asking, “Is it more distasteful to remove the integrity of the game by blatantly
cheating or by practicing unscrupulous policies?”
My answer to the latter: What’s the difference?
Like spygate, the response around the league has to make you
wonder just how far reaching this bounty system goes. Is this an isolated incident or is pay-for-injury an
omnipresent policy?
Football is a brutal sport and its players are modern-day
gladiators, quite literally risking their lives on each and every play for the
enjoyment of frail, physically inferior fans who wish they could swap places
with the “heroes” they see on the gridiron while knowing absolutely nothing as
to what such a job truly entails.
Perhaps this is what makes professional athletes so admirable; they do
what we cannot. They remain
unscathed by the type of contact that would send most of us into an
aspirin-induced weeklong catatonic state.
And so, they become role models regardless of how many insistences of
perceived narcissism, immorality, and/or violence should have convinced us long
ago that the majority of professional athletes are nothing of the sort.
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| Gregg Williams will be under some major fire from the media, but he is just one piece of a league-wide hypocrisy |
Yet, time and time again, we hold athletes to the standards
we hold ourselves despite the fact that it is those exact personality traits we
find so detestable that made them successful. Athletes who remain humble on the camera and noble on and
off the field may be these things, but do not think for one second that they
have not done nor will not do anything it takes to win.
So, then, is the bounty system everywhere in football? The guts of the issue comes down to
this: Do we really want to know?
What is the NFL?
The question seems simple enough but your answer to that question
probably has a lot more to do with your take on unspoken strategies than you
may initially think.
If you think the NFL is a business and should be conducted
as such, you probably find the bounty system despicable. Trying to knock someone out of a game
would be like downloading child pornography on the computer of your boss – you
want to end his career. Both seem
inherently wrong; you’re destroying the livelihood of an innocent so you can
potentially earn a little more money.
Never mind the fact that the league wants to expand it’s regular season
and can only capitalize on the increased revenue that comes with such a move if
the players can actually make it through a season.
If you think the NFL is a form of entertainment, encouraging
injury disgusts you as well.
Players are famous personalities whose lives we envy. They get paid to have fun. Nobody wants to see his/her favorite
player get deliberately knocked into retirement. Watching football on Sunday afternoons is a leisure
activity. Controversy interrupts
the lighthearted fun.
But, if you think the NFL is a physical gauntlet between the
meanest, strongest, and most competitive bastards on the planet, you probably
feel differently. The best players
are the ones who intimidate, play though pain, and will stop at nothing to
reach their goal of success. Hits
are hard for a reason; you want to end
people’s careers and they want to end
yours.
The truth is, most of us recognize professional football as
a combination of all these things.
Are fans just softer now than ever before? Disturbing information about the effects of persistent head
injuries would do it but does this make the average player or fan want to see
any type of regulations? Some
retired players are suing the NFL.
Others seem to pride themselves on the beatings they dished out and
survived. Mark Schlereth boasts
that he cannot fully lift one of his legs.
There will always be a culture of toughness and intensity in
football. Some players seem
unfazed, but there are those who are weary about news of bounties and
concussions. Are some of these
apparent tough guys just striving to maintain said image? And even if they’re being genuine, is
it the responsibility of the public and those removed from the actual hand-to-hand
combat to intervene? They all tell
us we don’t understand football.
We tell them they don’t understand science and medicine. You can try to eliminate direct
financial benefits from injuring players (bounty system), but self-conceived
and self-driven attempts to injure players for indirect financial benefits
(other team loses, you look better, you get paid more) are far more difficult. If all it takes are a few tens of
thousands of dollars to motivate multi-millionaires, is such reform even worth
the effort?
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| This Sports Illustrated cover story from the summer of 2007 is among its most influential ever; the perception of hard hits was forever changed |
From 2003 to 2006, one of the most popular segments on ESPN (ES-freakin-PN) was a bit called Jacked
Up! which I am sure we all remember.
It seems downright incomprehensible that the network highlighted the
most violent hits of the week in a positive light. Amid the mainstream increased research on player head
injuries, the shtick was shitcanned faster than you can say “Michael
Irvin.” Yet, there seems to be
nothing wrong with creating an “Any Era Team” which glorifies hard-hitting and
injury-enduring players. Ndamukong
Suh was a villain all season, but apparently his perceived hotheaded
misbehavior is somehow rewarded with a spot on the team when you replace the
word “dirty” with “tough.” I fail
to see the distinction. We are
outraged when players intentionally injure the opposition and when teams are
flippant in concussion regulations.
Is it not hypocritical for us to then praise guys who inflict big hits
and play injured?
24 hour sports coverage, twitter, and YouTube let us dive
into NFL locker rooms like never before.
Are we really so naïve to think this is the last and/or worst thing we
will find out about NFL teams?
Will there not be an even worse development a year from now? The Jets made a human wall on the
sidelines last season and the football world cried out for justice as if this
was some type of heinous crime.
It’s not even worth mentioning anymore. People want to clean up the game, which is all fine and
noble, but we aren’t talking about the world of puppetry or ceramics. It’s going to take a whole lot more
than fines, interventions, and independent doctors on the sidelines to do that
in the fierce world of football.
We will need to alter the fabric of the league in ways we are yet to
seriously consider. The question
is, do we want to?
-AW
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