​Gladiators in the Colosseum

Is the NFL Football Deflating?

Humans have always had a thing about contact sports to take their minds off the real world when life gets heavy. They packed the Roman Colosseum to watch Christians and criminals eaten by lions and tigers. They used their thumbs to save a fallen gladiator because he had performed well or was a cute blond—or to kill a loser who showed temerity or cowardice in battle.

When New Guinea tribes got bored and wanted barbecue on their menu they raided other tribes for human hearts, livers, loins, roasts, and steaks. The Aztecs played soccer games with human hearts from teenagers sacrificed to placate numerous gods.

Animal sacrifices over the centuries brought us both religion and sport. Bull rings started when bulls were sacrificed in elaborate religious ceremonies so that Roman soldiers could bathe themselves in bull’s blood and fill their bellies with testicles and other parts. Participation in these rituals supposedly brought them immortality. Naked Persian and Egyptian women danced in front of bulls before they were killed for the rituals so they could absorb the rampant fertility of the bulls. This is how the barbaric sport of bullfighting got started. Soon there was money to be made. Bull ring impresarios claimed matadors were the high priests from pagan Roman days, killing the bulls for the blood baths.

Like the contact sport of boxing, the public is losing stomach and gaining ickiness over the killing of bulls for sport. Animal rights activists have closed down bull rings in Spain and are working to abolish the “sport” in France, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Venezuela.

However, 40-year-old Jose Tomas, the most fearless and most damaged matador in all Mexico, recently drew 45,000 spectators to the Plaza Mexico, the biggest bull ring in all of Mexico. His biggest draw is allowing bulls to pass ever closer to his “rooted” body. In his first fight of the day, Jose’ let a 1,150-pound bull named Bellotero get too close and got gored in the leg. It’s not the first time. He almost died of a severe goring two years ago. After going through several “passes,” Jose’ killed Bellotero with one sword thrust and earned an ear from the crowd.

Bullfighting is still a relatively big deal in Mexico. In a country decimated by income inequality, front-row seats in the ring sold for nearly $8,000.

Is “Destrudo” the Reason for Human Aggression and Bloodlust?

Dr. Joseph Annibal, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst whose specialty is brain function, has been a lifelong fan of football, but now believes football, particularly at the professional level, is unethical. Sigmund Freud said humans have both loving and aggressive instincts. He called the positive, loving instinct “libido.”

Dr. Annibal and his colleagues have nicknamed the aggressive instinct “destrudo,” a destructive drive possessed by gladiators, Aztec soccer players, New Guinea cannibals, bullfighters, and the newest aggressive group, the “Ultimate Fighters.” Evidently they have replaced boxers. The good doctor says: “Can’t we find another way to channel our aggression? Is it fair to have our young people—typically young men whose prefrontal cortices are not even fully myelinated—put their bodies and brains at risk so that we can watch at home from our recliners? Or watch in the stadium?”

I was one of those young men back in 1950 when I was recruited to play college football and baseball at Moorhead State Teachers College after playing high school ball at Little Falls. I played eight years at center and offensive and defensive guard, was co-captain of the 1954 Dragons, and selected to the All-Conference team in that year.

Playing in the middle of the line in about 80 games I figured out one time I must have had over 14,000 collisions in games. We had a lot of collisions in practices, too.

Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, said: “Football is not a contact sport; it is a collision sport.” Lombardi added football has collisions on every play because the essence of the game is blocking and tackling. These actions cause pain, some worse than others.

In one game Packer Bill Curry was hit so hard he had no idea where he was. After the game in the locker room Lombardi had this conversation with him. Lombardi: “Curry, do you know where you are?” Curry: “No.” Lombardi: “Do you know what we were doing?” Curry: “No.” Lombardi: “Do you know who won the game?” Curry: Yes. We did.” Lombardi: “Good. You’re fine.” So much for a concussion check in Lombardi’s day.

I was lucky. I never missed a football game because of injury. But the game changed when the hard helmet with the fancy interior protective pads was developed. It was turned into a battering ram and brought head-hunters into the game. Helmets do not keep the brain from bouncing around in the skull, stretching and “concussing” the brain. The helmet only protects the player from having a fractured skull. But it took about 40 years of head-hunting play and years of research on the brain to find this out.

I Think the Game Can Be Saved From the Head-Hunters

Crowds and coaches cheered the head-hunters and pro team owners gave them big contracts. High school and college coaches looked for and encouraged head-hunters to hit hard with the head (and brain) as a weapon. We assumed that $200 helmet would protect the brain from sloshing around in the skull.

Pro players from the 1970s to the 2,000s have a life expectancy of 55 years. The average life expectancy of a Minnesota Viking fan is 81.1 years—unless he played soccer. Soccer is also hard on the brain.

Pro football players in that span of time are NINETEEN times as likely to suffer from brain trauma-related illnesses as those who didn’t play the game. A pro lineman will take an average of 130,000 full-speed collisions during a seven-year pro career. Repeated concussions can cause dementia, clinical depression, memory loss, and suicides.

Remember Andre Waters of the Philadelphia Eagles? He was a tough headhunter and played as a defensive safety for 11 years. Waters killed himself in 2006 at the age of 44 and doctors said he had the brain of an 85-year-old. I resent that. I’ll be 84 in March.

Pro football players are four times more likely to die from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) or Alzheimer’s. They can expect to live more than 20 years less than the average American male. The average NFL career lasts 3.3 years, so each year of collisions costs a player about six years of his life. But there is big money in the game. Americans spent over $12 billion on food, drink, merchandise, and electronics to watch and celebrate Super Bowl 50.

Clay Matthews of the Packers was fined $22,050 for roughing Seattle Quarterback Russell Wilson in a recent playoff game. Big deal. He earned that in 90 seconds according to his game contract.

Pro Football Offers an Expensive Glorious Distraction for Those Who Can Afford Tickets -- But Will Concussions and Greed Destroy the Game?

Officials are beginning to penalize the use of the head. Wide receivers going over the middle are being protected from head-hunting safeties and linebackers. Even running backs are being penalized for lowering the head and using it as a battering ram. (Wouldn’t it make a more interesting game if a player with a head violation was benched without replacement for five minutes as well as being assessed a 15-yard penalty? Think hockey and ten vs. eleven!)

We will never eliminate all head injuries through rule changes, but most of the head-on-head injuries can be eliminated. Eliminating greed from the game is another matter. All pro football franchises, except for the Green Bay Packers, are owned by 31 billionaires—all white—and have a value of $1.4 billion (Buffalo Bills) to $4 billion (Dallas Cowboys). The Vikings have a current value of about $1.7 billion.

This is how they will increase in value during the 2016-2017 season:

The new Viking billion-dollar stadium with 65,400 seats will certainly cater to the One Percent. About 50,000 of those seats will require the one-time purchase of a “seat license.” This is necessary if a fan wants to buy season tickets. As an example, a family of four with seats on the fifty-yard line will pay a license fee of $9,500 for each seat, which will then allow them to buy season tickets for ten home games (two exhibition games!) at $400 per seat per game. That comes to $54,000--which about equals the median income of Minnesotans.

Licenses are valid for 30 years. That’s before you buy $10 beers, $8 hotdogs, and $5 pops. The cheap seat licenses run $500 and the seat will cost you $50 per game—another $500 for the season. Playoff games are separate. Bring your binoculars and radio. The stadium has 108 suites containing 3,400 seats for the plutocrats. They sell for $110,000 to over $300,000 for a year. Purchasers must sign a four-year lease. Most suites have been sold.

Super Bowl 50, $28,000 Seats, and the San Francisco Revolt

Some fans paid scalpers $28,000 for 50-yard lower-level seats for Super Bowl 50. Seats were advertised on the Internet for as much as $150,000. They probably did not sell for that price—but who knows? A “get-in” price was over $3,000, with the lowest price being $3,148 for a seat in the corner of the upper deck. End zone seats went for $3,641 while suite tickets averaged $7,721. The average selling price for a ticket this year was $4,879. A bottle of beer was $13, a popcorn bucket $15, bottled water $7, shrimp roll $16. A hotdog was a bargain at $8. Income inequality seems to be rearing its ugly head.

A letter to the Star Tribune in January from a fan whose family had Viking tickets for 54 years indicated that the family of four—two doctors and two sons—could no longer afford to go to Viking games so they were giving up their 2016-17 season tickets in the new stadium. The letter did not indicate what their combined income was, but one might assume it was in the $400,000 range of the One Percent.

San Francisco, being the nearest big city to Santa Clara, hosted many of the Super Bowl 50 fans. An absolute storm of anger from average residents greeted the One Percent on the streets. San Francisco is now a city divided by Silicon Valley billionaires who have created sky-high housing costs, whether buying mansions or apartments in low-income neighborhoods, thus driving out the middle-class. Everything in the area is over the top, from expensive restaurants to high-end stores catering to the One Percent.

Super Bowl statues commemorating the event were constantly vandalized and had to be removed from their sites. The city tried to sweep the homeless out of the view of visitors—and San Francisco has a lot of them. Residents established a tent city for the homeless right next to Super Bowl City to make a point. It was immediately surrounded by riot police.

One resident said: “You have a $5 million giveaway to host the Super Bowl party, and that’s money that could have been spent to house 500 homeless for a year. In San Francisco we’re supposed to be the bastion of crazy liberals. Instead of raising wages for teachers so they can afford to live here, we’re spending money on a party for people who work for the NFL.”

Maybe greed will play a prominent role in ending football as we presently know it. Vince Lombardi once said, “A university without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.” It’s quite evident we need more study halls now.

Joe Theismann, a former Redskin quarterback, says, “The challenge for all football is at what point do you try to eliminate hits and still maintain the integrity of football.” I think it can be done. Maybe billionaires will quit paying $5 million for a 30-second ad.