The guilty pleasure of watching professional football

By R.K. Barry

Last week I stumbled on an article about the long-term health impacts on those who play professional football. The article referenced a University of North Carolina study that indicated that:

[r]epeatedly concussed National Football League players had five times the rate of mild cognitive impairment (pre-Alzheimer) than the average population [and that] retired NFL players suffer from Alzheimer's disease at a 37 per cent higher rate than average.

But the really chilling finding of the study was that "the average life expectancy of all pro football players, including all positions and backgrounds, is 55. Several insurance carriers say it is 51."

The article citing the study went on to quote many people associated with professional football, as they all agreed that this was concerning and that they would continue to do things like modifying rules and improving equipment to better protect players.

Okay. All good.

Who knows how accurate these projections are. But I don't think it is particularly controversial to suggest that the game is ending lives prematurely -- and apparently by a lot.

I write this as a football fan. I love my New York Giants and go back so far as to have vague recollections of Y.A. Tittle playing at Yankee Stadium. But I wouldn't have much of a moral compass if I wasn't a little worried by all of this.

To a degree, I comfort myself with the thought that I am more a fan of the finesse part of the game, the strategy, the athleticism, rather than the brute violence -- but the game is violent. When played as designed, very large, very fast men hit each other hard enough to cause permanent damage, leading to significantly shortened lifespans.

There are all sorts of ways to rationalize this. Many of the players are making obscene amounts of money, likely more than they would ever make in any other occupation. The decision to play belongs to them. Other jobs are dangerous and the payoff not as rich. All true, but we don't cheer on cops and fireman doing their jobs in the hope that something violent and exciting might happen (unless we are really sick).

In truth, I don't know where this discussion goes in my own mind. I'm still going to watch football should there be a season come September.

But I can't help thinking that we haven't progressed all that far from the days of the gladiators who might be taken away dead immediately after competition. The only difference now is that athletes have to wait 15 or 20 years before the ravages of the game take their final toll -- decades before a natural life expectancy would demand.

Something to think about. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)