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Time for NFL, NCAA, CFL et. al to come together & get serious about player safety [1]

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Date: 2023-01-03

Not worth dying for. Or watching someone else die for.

All Thoughts & Prayers are now, of course, with Damar Hamlin, but the only way for The World of Football to deal with the inevitable fallout his injury will generate may require something unimaginable even a few short years ago- a sincere, concerted joint effort between the National Football League, elite college football like NCAA Division I, and maybe even the Canadian Football League, semipro and international leagues, too.

Details haven’t changed much since Monday night on Hamlin’s condition or cause of his cardiac arrest (since 4PM CT), but there’s already been talk whether this event is a harbinger for similar occurrences in the future. The NFL has known for at least a decade that football players are getting bigger and stronger, exponentially. Every NFL team has a Level One trauma center within 15 minutes of their home stadium. The still-controversial “Helmet Rule” enacted by owners in 2018 was intended to curb what was recognized as the most dangerous football maneuver- ducking the head to use the helmet as a battering ram.

Despite precautions taken by the NFL, the primary factor saving Damar’s life was that he started receiving medical attention less than a half-minute after his collapse. Indeed, the NFL revealed some hours later Hamlin had been resuscitated on the field before going into the ambulance.

If you consider players from elite colleges have played a highly aggressive level of football three, five or more years (due to complex “redshirting” rules) before reaching the NFL, it’s a wonder injuries as severe as Hamlin’s aren’t more commonplace. Damar was fortunately to come from a Division I school (Pitt), but even these programs don’t match the resources of the NFL. And don’t mention smaller schools, many who do produce players for the NFL, CFL, and international leagues. If something like the Damar Hamlin incident happened at an HBCU football game, would the player have survived?

For every Damar Hamlin who wins a spot on an NFL team, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of college players who will never play professional football subjecting themselves to similar levels of physical risk. Some try for pro glory and don’t make it, many more use football and other collegiate sports as a way to pay for prohibitively expensive educations.

Unlike Major League Baseball, the American professional football industry has no “minor league”. The NFL’s absolutely brilliant biz model has college/university sports programs at all levels as the farm system to develop players for elite level performance- almost none of it paid for by The League. The CFL often serves as a 1st stop for players seeking a spot in the NFL who don’t make the draft, many players coming out of NCAA Division I for a short CFL stint before trying their luck as an NFL walk-on. The NFL could and should do more to protect players, but by the time they’ve reach The Big Time, many players may already be damaged goods, especially in light of the stronger, faster athletes now in the game. It will be interesting to see if Hamlin’s injury and heart attack has anything to do with previous trauma now regarded a natural and accepted part of the game.

And let’s call it for what it is. While Tom Brady may be prototype for the American Football Hero, 70% of NFL players are Black. The Marshawn Lynch’s of The World may have decades-long careers igniting endorsement-viable brands lasting beyond their playing days, but the average player NFL spends 3-4 faceless years on a kickoff return or defensive backfield squad, traded down or released the minute their physical abilities fail to reach exponentially increasing standards for size, speed, strength, and agility. Thru this lens the hundreds of players passing thru the NFL (thousands if you count elite college football) every year resemble a vast army of gladiators, sacrificing limbs (and now literally life) for our entertainment in exchange for a few dollars and a moment in the spotlight.

I’m not overstating this, at least I don’t think MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle would think so. As we waited to hear definitive word of Damar’s condition, Steph emphatically reminded us “These guys risk their lives every time they go out on the field!”. Maybe I’m just sad and a bit envious my Nighttime News Crush Stephanie isn’t single, but I’m guessing she doesn’t watch a lot of football, at least not with other people. Ability to defy death may be a desired quality in a Green Beret or SEAL Team candidate, but it’s not exactly what I’d expect from a wide receiver or cornerback. I may have yelled out “Kill him!” when the opposing team’s running back broke thru the hole on his way to the end zone, but I don’t think so.

Stephanie, my love, this is probably not the ringing endorsement the NFL was looking for. You also might be encouraging that small but persistent contingent telling us American football’s violent and brutal nature has too many innocent victims to be truly entertaining. It's possible for the popularity of a sport to come and go- did you know cycling was as popular in pre-WWI America as football is today? I doubt we’ll ever see another boxing match on prime-time network TV. So far NFL honchos have wisely avoided any statements not concerning Damar, but the increasingly violent nature of football will eventually have to be addressed Lest This Happen Again.

Here’s where the grand scheme of Football Cooperation comes in:

The NFL and NCAA takes a strong and proactive effort to address safety, everything from rule changes to equipment tech to research, research, research. It may entail seemingly odd and hard-to-enforce changes- could you imagine a limit on the size of offensive/defensive linemen?

Immediately upon entering an accredited high school level football program all players are enrolled in a special insurance plan covering sports related injuries while playing, and neurological injuries for life. This insurance is funded by a combination of government money and revenue raised by taxes on the sale of tickets and TV licensing of NFL and NCAA Division I games (yes, we should all help pay for this if we want people to face life-altering injury to entertain us).

Any innovations developed by pro or elite college teams are immediately adapted for wider use, eventually offered to high school and even youth football program. This model can then be adapted for other contact sports such as basketball, rugby, lacrosse, etc.

If any of it works, the CFL should also get involved, and eventually international leagues. The NFL and TV networks making a fortune from college sports will pay for most of this. The NFL Players Association does what it can to extract some of the $$$Billions players help generate and get some measure of protection for non-star players, but in the end it’ll be pressure from the market- i.e. us fans- to bring any real pressure or change for greater player safety. Given the almost absurdly wide popularity of the NFL, that means don’t count on it anytime soon.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/3/2145206/-Time-for-NFL-NCAA-CFL-et-al-to-come-together-get-serious-about-player-safety

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