{"id":14884,"date":"2012-05-03T07:49:51","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T12:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=14884"},"modified":"2012-05-03T07:49:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T12:49:51","slug":"is-the-nfl-at-the-peak-of-popularity-also-at-the-peak-of-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/05\/03\/is-the-nfl-at-the-peak-of-popularity-also-at-the-peak-of-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the NFL at the peak of popularity also at the peak of risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Souhan’s column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune<\/em><\/a> shows the risks players are taking may be greater than they expect:<\/p>\n

The problems faced by today’s NFL makes the notion of ballplayers inflating their muscles in an attempt to hit baseballs far almost charming.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Seau apparently took his own life with a shot to the chest. Former Bear Dave Duerson also killed himself with a shot to his chest, and left a note asking that his brain be studied to increase awareness of how head injuries affect football players. Duerson believed hits to his head left him mentally impaired.<\/p>\n

The NFL never has been more popular, or more endangered. Every year what was once suspected moves closer to universally accepted fact: Human beings shouldn’t play tackle football, at least at the level of violence required by professional coaches.<\/p>\n

Malicious hits have become such an important part of the NFL that players, for the Saints and other teams, have defended the bounty system as nothing more than a bureaucratic form of violence as usual. Every NFL defender knows he should knock opponents out of the game, or just out; the Saints were the rare team arrogant enough to systemize their goals.<\/p>\n

If Seau indeed committed suicide, and if he indeed shot himself in the chest so his brain could be studied, we will have another reminder of the NFL’s punitive laws of physics: Current NFL players are so explosive that allowing them to smash into each other at will is criminal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Souhan’s column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows the risks players are taking may be greater than they expect: The problems faced by today’s NFL makes the notion of ballplayers inflating their muscles in an attempt to hit baseballs far almost charming. Authorities said Seau apparently took his own life with a shot to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,66],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-14884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-health-science","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3S4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14885,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14884\/revisions\/14885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}