The biggest scourge on professional sports isn’t steroids or human growth hormone abuse. It’s the damage that is done to player’s longterm health caused by brain injury. Concussions are incredibly dangerous and shockingly underreported. I think part of the problem is that our hyper-masculine culture won’t acknowledge perceived weakness inside of sports.
I remember how DONAVAN McNABB was lauded for playing a football game on a broken leg. His effort became heroic and legendary. When my Jets had KEN O’BRIEN under center he was chided for not being able to withstand the crushing hits from defensive linemen and linebackers.
The thing is this… Today’s athletes are fucking machines that are so well conditioned they can run laps around the players from yesteryear. Football players wear so much equipment that they are veritable weapons in polycarbonate armor. If the league REALLY wanted to protect players they would remove all the body armor and put flags in the offensive players waistbands.
There isn’t any other way to prevent these athletes from knocking themselves silly unless you remove the equipment that enables them to propel themselves thru the air with reckless abandon. The number of players suffering from concussions is getting ugly.
It’s time again for the players to just be plain ugly.
