Stop me if you have heard this before. "The players (nfl) are too soft." "The NFL is becoming flag football." "There's too many rules to protect the players." Well that's been NFL fans and some NFL media and some players since the 1990s.
In 2012 fans cheered as Matt Cassel suffered a concussion. In 2013 fans cheered as Matt Schaub got Injured. In 2017 they cheered as Carson Wentz got hurt. In 2018 they cheered again when Aaron Rodgers injured his collarbone. Don't think it's just football either. In 2019 fans cheered a Kevin Durant injury. Fans cheer for injuries all the time.
In October, Troy Aikman was covering a game and after a roughing the passer penalty, which is a rule to protect players Aikman said this, "I hope that the competition committee looks at this during the set of meetings and we take the dresses off."
* Update: On Sunday January 8th, Steelers players mocked the injury, pretending to give AED treatment to another.*
The Point I am making is there are too many fans that don't care about player safety. Players are just cattle or robots to them. It has become acceptable for fans to wish and cheer for injuries. And they are supported by the NFL players and media who spew the same rhetoric as fans.
Sports personality Skip Bayless is in trouble over a tweet he had. Fans are outraged at Skip for his comments but are they justified or are they hypocritical in doing so? Obviously it has to be taken in a case by case situation but there are a lot of hypocrites today that are attacking Bayless.
Bayless tweeted, "No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game - but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome ... which suddenly seems so irrelevant."
Not a human that cares about player safety, that hasn't cheered for 30 to 40 years for players to get hurt or called them soft for having safety rules, wouldn't be outraged over the comment. Hell, Damar Hamlin almost died on the field.
To make matters worse, it was said on air that team's had five minutes. Five minutes before the game would resume. It was said multiple times.
After the team's reportedly spoke with the league, the game was suspended. The NFL denies ever giving the two teams a five minute window to compose themselves.
Timothy Burke tweeted the following, "Joe Buck stated it on-air as fact four separate times so figuring out who is lying should be pretty straightforward."
However, the league has fought CTE for the longest time before finally admitting to it because it was more concerned with money. A movie was even made about it. The league cares about money, it has repeatedly shown that. It's safety rules are a smoke screen to avoid lawsuits.
So It's very well possible and highly probably that the league was only thinking the same thing Skip Bayless was thinking. That the show go on. Otherwise the league loses money and that's bad for business. Denial afterwards is again to protect the image to protect revenue.
Here's some information the NFL tries to keep hushed. It's damaging to the shield and they know it. It shows just how little the players actually matter to the NFL in comparison to profit. And it's close to the same situation that happened Monday night.
On October 24, 1971 the show went on when Detriot Lions receiver Chuck Hughes had a heart attack on the field. Hughes was walking back to the huddle when it happened after a play when he fell face forward.
Kent Falb said this about the incident, ""When I got to Chuck, it was an athlete trainer’s worst nightmare because he was not breathing and was extremely pale."
Chuck would be carted off the field, play would resume and the game would be finished. It took almost an hour for players and coaches to be told Hughes had passed away.
Now I am not trying to defend Skip Bayless but the league has a long history of continuing the game after a serious injury occurs. If it would allow the game to continue after a player died on the field once, why would one not assume with how the league has conducted it self since that it would not continue with the same mindset?
Hamlin reportedly woke up and is able to write. And reportedly the one thing he asked was who won the game he was Injured in. Even the guy who almost died thought the game would've continued. The NFL now has decided to cancel the game between the two teams. It is unclear if that came before or after Hamlin asked.
Between the fans, players, sports media and the NFL itself, what Skip Bayless said on Monday night was in line with American sports. If people don't like it, people need to change the culture in fandoms and the league needs to change it's image. They all do and that is the blunt honest truth.
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