Thursday, April 5, 2012

…OF SAINTS, SINNERS and HYPOCRITES

The New Orleans Saints broke the rules, defied and lied to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. For that defiance they deserved to be punished. If my father told me specifically to not to go hanging in the French Quarter and then I ignored him and did it again. I would expect to be have all my driving privileges taken away for a month (but this isn’t about my teenage miscues). Sean Payton has been handed a season long suspension for systemic failures on his part in in this case. We all know the story of how the New Orleans Saints were running a—and I use the term loosely—“bounty program”, where non contract incentives were offered for “knock out” hits and “cart-offs” and repeatedly ignored.

As Saints fan, I am disappointed because I just don’t want my team to have any setbacks in the annual quest for “the ring”. As a football fan I respect that Goodell is commissioner and he has to police his sport, though I may beg to differ on his reasons. As a former football player, who began playing the sport at the age of 8 years old and continuing on to high school and college, I am taken aback by the media and the public’s so-called moral outrage and sudden concern for player personal safety in sports. If you haven’t realized it, football is not natural. Football is a violent sport, not high school football, not college football, not pro football—football is a violent sport. This is a sport where 22 men, who have been training their bodies for years to be fined, tuned, human catapults. These catapults then repeatedly engage in 75 to 85 violent collisions over a three hour period. As I said, “This is not natural.” For roughly 22 weeks, including pre-season and post season, 32 teams do this before filled 65,000 thousand seat stadiums and millions watching at home on TV. They all want to watch these modern day gladiators hit each other, not unlike old Roman Coliseum. The viewers at home want to watch this blood sport so badly they will pay $300 so they won’t miss a moment of all the games being televised from their modern day coliseums. The game is so loved the league at one point packaged a “Greatest Hits video of literally the most violent hits of the year. Football is so loved that a certain four letter network assembles plays to show at half time and hits are usually involved. This game is so loved, that fans have actually motioned to turn the Super Bowl day into a national holiday. But the moment a reporter kicks his Microsoft Word thesaurus into overdrive and uses a word like ”bounty” in reference of the sport. The warriors that are so celebrated are now vilified, equated with violent murderers and even considered to be brought up on criminal charges. Really, Joe Fan? The idea of incentive didn’t start in the Saints locker room. It has been going on for years across America and it starts on the playground. I can recall a coach offering $5 or a McDonald’s meal to whomever, in a room full of 8 year olds, had a big hit in the game. The rewards continue on in high school and college, where it’s even publicly celebrated with stickers on helmets. You don’t think all those stickers are for fumble recoveries do you? There’s always a reward for the violence football players perpetrate weekly, the coffers just differ in value at the different levels of play. I played football on the playground, high school and collegiate levels and I knew I was playing a violent sport. Each time I moved to another level of football I experienced an initial hit that “rang my bell” and signified to me that the level of play has yet again stepped it up, but I continue playing this violent sport. At eight years old I knew I wanted to be a part of this violent sport and I was reminded constantly in the beginning. I recall in one of my first practices as a child and I approached a tackle hesitantly with my head down and a turned shoulder. I instantly got angrily chewed out by my coach, who said “Don’t you ever let me see you make a tackle like that. If you don’t go full speed and you can get paralyzed.” My coach may have exaggerated that day but he wanted me to know is if I wasn’t going 100 miles an hour, the other player was. And while I may not get paralyzed I could get hurt. I must admit even before “bounty gate” the League concerned me with the way they want defensive players to turn their shoulders to make tackles now. They are asking people who have been taught all their lives to hit a player square and run their face mask into them. As much as wide receivers are “defenseless” now, I am more concerned about defensive backs are defenseless. Has anyone seen Calvin “Megatron” Johson? NFL Receivers are averaging 6’3, 240 nowadays. Can you imagine having to slow down to tackle him because you can only hit him with a certain part of your body? He will run across coverage and “through” a DB, who is trying to avoid hitting a defenseless receiver and not getting fined by Commissioner Goodell. The largest cry I hear from the public is how the Saints were out to hurt people and while nomenclature like “knock out” and “cart-off” have been tossed around like fish at Sea World, I think the media and league has jumped to the conclusion of malicious intent on the Saints part. Of the 6 billion people on Earth, the just over 1800 men who make up the NFL, they all know they play a violent game and are in a very, small fraternity. Yes, they all want to “hurt” each other which means, “I want you thinking about me so much, I take you out of your game and make you miss an assignment”. No one wants to end a person’s livelihood as I’ve heard so many players say. As a former a defensive player, I believe no one man would take a play off to “intentionally hurt a specific player”, if for nothing else but not miss their play assignment. In the 30 seconds before a play goes off, a defensive player is thinking “What’s the formation”, “what’s the coverage”, “how many running backs”, “is my assignment changing because of the formation”. Not “Where is the receiver I can get $1000 for hitting really hard?” If a player missed his assignment to “knock out” a player, it probably would be his last play ever for the Saints. I am not all knowing but I am quite confident that no pro football player intends to maliciously hurt another player. There’s just too much mutual respect for what the next man has done to get in this elite fraternity. If you’re still not convinced, recall Lawrence Taylor, the most feared linebacker in the game after he broke Joe Theismann’s leg on Monday Night Football. The sheer horror on Lawrence’s face as he called and beckoned for the ambulance to get to the field quickly should tell you enough of how players so respect one another. Now I know many will challenge me on the players “intent” but until you’ve run a 40 yard dash in their cleats you can’t really speak on it. And whilst my 40 time in slow, I’ve still managed to finish a few races. So my question for my outraged, PC, non-violent, pro football fans, if we proudly keep this personal safety up, when do they start playing flag football?

Now Follow me! Follow Me to Freedom!