NFL alumni are dying ... and few care

[RockaFowler]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/super-bowl-nfl-players-are-dying-and-few-care-barack-obama-ed-reed-san-francisco-49ers-baltimore-ravens-junior-seau-012813

Here’s the frustrating thing about most football players. They are less concerned about their health than everybody else is at the moment. This is most likely a coping mechanism, a necessary one when your life’s work is launching oneself head first into another human at sometimes literally neck-breaking speeds. So they talk about how it takes a certain kind of man and how their sons will be that kind of man and they seem genuinely perplexed when somebody points out that that kind of man has been blowing his heart out with a .357 magnum with increasing frequency.

SNIP

This is just like the tobacco industry back in the day. The companies making billions know the dangers yet the money is too good to address them. So you wait. You wait for the lawsuits, for the smoking gun, for enough guys like Ed Reed to say enough is enough.

Because he believes football can be safe — if played right, if the health of every player, not just quarterbacks, is protected, if proper medical treatment is provided. What he does not believe is they are on the right path.

“When you have the president talking about it,” Reed said, “That’s something.”

And when one of the best players in the game says he plans to tell his son he played so that he doesn’t have to, that says something else entirely. It says that we need to say screw etiquette and follow the president's lead and talk about the players dying for our enjoyment.

[trotsky]

1. It takes a Grade-A douche to criticize those bringing this up...

as if it will somehow destroy the sport if we don't let these young men destroy their lives anymore.

I really can't see how it would, but you know what? If it does, then IMHO American football doesn't deserve to survive as a sport.

[Auggie]

2. I care

I'm struggling with my love for the game and the consequences that come from playing it.

The responses of many players do not surprise me. For many high school and college athletes, particularly those of a certain skill set or physical stature, the NFL represents the default choice for a lucrative albeit short career.

I agree with the President. We owe a responsibility to those who continue to play do so with the best protective equipment technology can create and new rules that lessen violent impacts. We're all going to have the bite the bullet on this and accept a new NFL.

As for Jim Harbaugh ... he is not an eloquent public speaker and should keep his mouth shut. As the representative of the 49ers, I think his response to the President's comment was way-out-of-line. Could you ever imagine that coming from Bill Walsh or Carmen Policy?

[trumad]

3. You will always find douchebags who don't give a shit.

Hell right here in our own little sports forum there's a douchebag that takes the corporate side on these issues every single time.

He's a troll who has been floating around here forever... and on an issue like this there aint no doubt the side he comes down on.

I hate little fuckers like that---fucking keyboard cowards---fat, lazy, living with their Mom, wallowing around in their own feces.

This is a big time issue and will get bigger by the day.

[TZ]

4. short sightedness is an american value

Look at the people who don't give a shit about Global Warming because they won't be around to worry about it. Same thing in football. Plus the people that moan about it changing the sport don't really give a damn about the players as people, just as objects of entertainment IMO. And the players are live for the moment.

[RockaFowler]

5. That's why I love you!!

You are absolutely 100% correct again my friend

People are dying right now - not sure when it would be a good time to talk about this issue

[Auggie]

6. Add the lure of short term corporate profits

Less and less investment in R&D, health care, and employee safety and retirement. Not totally applicable to the NFL, though I bet they're concerned a tamer game will cost them fans.

[mojowork_n]

7. At best, it's denial. At worst, the sorriest me-first/screw-you attitude...

Our local paper had this little snippet today.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/188777451.html

There is a disconnect between the aims of some of the retired NFL players and the current players in the league. Take, for example, Hall of Fame defensive back Herb Adderley of the Packers and Saints quarterback Drew Brees. Adderley was a guest Monday on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio channel with host Chris Russo.

In discussing the struggles of the retired NFL players, Russo asked Adderley his thoughts about the criticism of retirees from well known players like Brees. Russo referenced a quote from Brees from a few years ago: "There’s some guys out there that have made bad business decisions. They took their pensions early because they never went out and got a job. They’ve had a couple divorces and they’re making payments to this place and that place and that’s why they don’t have money. And they’re coming to us to basically say, ‘Please make up for my bad judgment.’ "

Russo said to Adderley: “That’s pretty harsh. Your thoughts on that?”

“Drew Brees is misinformed and he had no idea what was going on as far as why," Adderley said. "He never came to any of the guys and said, ‘Well, why did you have to take early pension?’ He just made up his own mind about why some guys were in bad shape financially. And he just came out and made statements like that. And in my mind, Drew Brees is one of the greediest guys, and misinformed guys, in the NFL today. Last year he held out because he wanted more money. The guy’s already made millions and millions and millions of dollars, but he’s going to hold out for more money. And then he comes down on the retired guys for just wanting a few more dollars for the time, the cornerstones, what we put in the league . . . . And none of us retired guys are fans of Brees because of him being misinformed. I needed the money. I needed to put my daughter through school and she ended up being a very successful dentist at the particular time in Washington, D.C. If I don’t do that, she don’t end up going to college.”