courtesy of: espn.com
The topic of discussion around the NFL over the past week and a half has been primarily free agency. Every year we see it; the Black Friday-esque stampede that occurs when the doors open and everyone’s rushing to grab their 60″ flat screen. It’s an interesting dichotomy between these two events when you consider that the actions are very similar, but the economics are completely reversed. Consumers storm their local Walmart because that new TV is marked down 276%. Owners and GMs storm the free agent market and seem pleased when they grossly overspend on some shiny new toy coming off of an outlier season. I’m constantly intrigued by this business model…but I’m getting off topic. NFL teams and their frivolous free agent spending is another column (which frankly writes itself).
No, this column is about a secondary narrative that has gained traction over the past few days; the concept of what the future of football will look like. Last week, 7-time Pro Bowler Patrick Willis announced his retirement from the NFL at the age of 30. In his address to the media, last Tuesday, he cited, very specifically, that his feet could no longer handle the speed and rigors of professional football. The sentiment was that if he could no longer perform at the level his fans and teammates expected of him, then it was time to hang it up. But there was more to it than that.
“You’ve seen me break my hand on Sunday, have surgery on Monday and play on Thursday with a cast on.” Willis said; in a moment that was equal parts a demonstration of his commitment to the game and seemingly a reflection on the toll that commitment takes. He may have pinned his decision on his perceived inability to remain “great”, but it was apparent that his future after football played a part as well.
A few days after Willis’ announcement, his teammate Chris Borland followed suit. Unlike Willis however, Borland is just 24 years old. He spent one season in the NFL…last season. What made Borland’s announcement so groundbreaking was not simply that he was walking away from the game at such a young age. It was the reasoning behind it.
“I just honestly want to do what’s best for my health,” Borland said. “From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I just don’t think it’s worth the risk…” He went on. “I feel largely the same, as sharp as I’ve ever been, for me it’s wanting to be proactive. I’m concerned that if you wait until you have symptoms, it’s too late…”
These statements, made by a 24 year old athlete on the brink of a promising and economically rewarding career, speak volumes about the potential future of the game of football. Over the past five to seven years, the terms “concussion protocol” and “CTE” (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) have crept into the vocabulary of football players, analysts, and fans alike. Not because they’ve just been discovered; but because their direct connection to our country’s most popular sport has only recently been brought to our attention. Currently, the only way to formally diagnose CTE is postmortem and so only now, after the deaths of former NFL players like Dave Duerson, Junior Seau, and Mike Webster, we’re learning that what we feared to be true is indeed so.
In recent years, the NFL has been forced to face these issues and answer for what they knew, when they knew it, and how they plan to make their game safer. Despite operating under what feels like a consistent state of hypocrisy, the NFL has taken steps, from an in-game perspective, to try and reduce the frequency of concussion-resulting hits. Rule changes have become a yearly ritual and the game continues to evolve into a form that only slightly resembles the one that existed fifty, thirty, even twenty years ago. These fundamental changes in the way the game is played have helped the NFL stem the tide of a rapid decline in popularity by increasing scoring and inflating offensive numbers. The ever-present possibility that a record could be broken distracts from the far less glamorous facts that increasingly threaten the fate of football.
Yesterday, in a discussion with a friend on this very topic, I used the term “watered down” when talking about the product on the field. I immediately regretted my choice of words. In using that phrase, the connotation is that the game is becoming too non-violent and that it would somehow be more pure to see guys stumble to the line after a hit that “rings their bell” and go back at it on the next snap. What I meant at that point in the discussion was that the quality of the product we have come to know as NFL Football has likely reached it peak and is on the decline. It will not be visible on the field in 2015 or 2016, but that decline is coming.
Recent polls have indicated that increasingly, parents are steering their children away from football at an early age. As more and more information becomes available about the effects of head trauma on still-developing children, the sentiment that “it’s not worth the risk” is turning into a mantra. Today, an athletically gifted child is as likely to turn their attention to soccer, basketball, or baseball as he is to football. That would not have been the case a decade or two ago as football’s popularity was skyrocketing. As these children, or more accurately these children’s parents, make the decision to stay away from football, the player pool begins to dry up. Today, we are seeing the results of a history of violence that was celebrated among players and fans of a former era of football. And just as it took decades to reach this point, it may take another decade to see the results of the decisions being made by parents today. But it will happen.
Will football go the way of boxing; a once extremely popular sport in America which has fallen into virtual obscurity? That remains to be seen. The amount of money generated by the NFL in merchandising and television contracts likely means it will not go away quietly. But the future of football is murky today, and that alone speaks as loudly as the decision of a 24 year old to not take the risk.
