Woodyknowssport's Blog

NFL Feature

Brian Westbrook: NFL players are reminded…

Having an occupation as a professional football player in the NFL has enormous benefits.  Many casual and even intense fans may not realize the long lasting effects in regards to the quality of life one faces as a NFL player.

The NFL according to TV ratings has become our national pastime surpassing Major League Baseball.  With that being said, there is a large percentage of the youth targeting the NFL as their profession.  As with every job there are pro’s and cons…but with professional football it is a matter of life and death.

The Brian Westbrook situation has brought this issue to the debatable front once again.  After suffering his second concussion in four weeks, Westbrook is sidelined until further evaluation.  Once I viewed the replay, many times over, of the hit which caused the second concussion, I deemed it to be on the average scale of “violent collisions” as far as the NFL goes.  I say this as evidence, that to reaggrevate a concussed diagnosis does not require a devastating  head blow.  In fact, you can simply be getting out of bed and undergo severe headpain.  So should the NFL be just as cautious with concussions as they are with ACL’s?…out for the year?

In the broader scope of things, NFL rookies are briefed on the potential consequences that they face.  As with everything in life, we can assess and learn from history.  The history of NFL players go as follows:  the average life expectancy for players is 55(it shortens for lineman); every NFL season substract 3 to 3 1/2 years of life; players are three times more likely to have dementia,  Alheimer’s disease or cronic depression than the typical american.

Once upon a time when Lombardi and leathernecks grazed the gridiron of professional football the attitude towards “headaches” was to bang it out, literally.  The tough guy image has cost many players years.  This lingered into the mid to late ninties.  With players becoming stronger, faster, and more motivated to join the “money machine” which is the NFL, the all or nothing attitude resulted in more paralyzations, neck injuries and even brushes with death(…Chris Simms and ruptured spleen).  Unfornately it took these extreme circumstances to start dialogue regarding solutions.  The preception of many insiders is that the League only discusses these situations simply to pacify the outside masses.  There interests are taken not to be genuine because the financial reprecussions that would fall on the NFL…i.e. pension programs, insurance, reduction of tenure qualifications etc…

I have and will always believe that the NFL is an operation that parallels organized crime because it has monopolized its product.  That being said, I am a huge fan and make it a part of my life daily.

I dislike critisizing  without giving solutions, so here we go:  I believe the Senate should delegate and organize an association of physicians that do not have NFL ties to oversee players conditions at every game.  They would set a standard across the board without having the fear of their livihood come into question.  Secondly, some engineer could figure out a way to have safer helmets.  For goodness sake, we have people living in a spacestation in orbit!  I’m sure we can double cushion it or something.

So the next time you think that NFL players are getting paid too much, remember, this will ultimately, most likely, cost them their lives…and no amount of money is worth that.