Football, like life, continues to move on: A rebuttal
The sports world held its collective breath last week as Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin lay on the field Monday night, fighting for his life. Having gone into cardiac arrest during what appeared to be a routine play, Hamlin was the focus of countless hours of somber reflection by sports journalists and fans alike. This young, athletic man living his lifelong dream may very well have passed away in front of the world as far as we all knew at the time.
Luckily, as the week went on, more and more positive news came from the Cincinnati hospital where Hamlin remains hospitalized. The quick action and life-saving measures performed by Bills medical staff and the University of Cincinnati hospital team appear to have mitigated the potential damage caused by the cardiac arrest. Hamlin was able to recover enough to surprise his team via FaceTime on Friday, telling his Bills teammates that he loves them and flexing for them.
It appears to truly be a best-case scenario playing out in the face of a life-and-death situation that could have been so much worse.
With this happy news in hand, the football world celebrates by getting back to business. There are games with major playoff implications yet to be played; games that could very well determine the future of dozens of players and coaches. Our sighs of relief morph into cheers of elation and groans of disappointment as the NFL regular season winds down. We tell ourselves that Damar Hamlin will be ok, so we are allowed to tune in and cheer for our teams.
The ease of that transition is bothersome to Kevin Blackistone, an award-winning sports journalist and frequent guest on ESPN. He wrote an article for the Washington Post talking about the seeming addiction that we as a nation have to football. Blackistone writes about the brutality of the sport, both on and off the field, and how it can change the course of lives, yet we remain unwavering in our support. It’s a fantastic read that I recommend to any and all.
While I agree with many of the points that Blackistone makes in his article, I don’t necessarily see things the same way he does.
Where Blackistone sees addiction, I see fervor. Americans are a far cry from other countries’ all-consuming devotion to their soccer teams. The rate of domestic violence in England goes up whenever the national team plays. Not when they lose, mind you; when they play. Whatever the outcome is, there is at least a 28% increase in reported domestic violence rates. That number climbs to 38% when the team loses.
Where Blackistone attributes Hamlin’s cardiac arrest to the inevitability of violent plays, I see a freak occurrence that has happened in other sports besides football. Hockey Hall of Famer Chris Pronger was struck in the chest by a puck during a 1998 playoff game and collapsed on the ice. A seven-year old boy was killed last year when he was struck in the chest by a baseball and suffered a heart attack. All examples of commotio cordis, the syndrome caused by an impact to the chest which triggers a heart attack.
I’m not one to generally engage in what-aboutism, but it feels a bit unfair to characterize football fans as addicts. We are not bloodthirsty Romans crammed into the Colosseum, clamoring for more death and dismemberment. We do not gun down athletes who make mistakes, a fate cast upon Andrés Escobar by a disgruntled fan after the 1994 World Cup.
In Blackistone’s defense, football fans have always loved big hits that can be heard all the way in the nosebleed sections. A quick search on YouTube pulls up hundreds of videos displaying the biggest collisions in football throughout the years. Crushing blows that ultimately led to injuries, concussions, and pain long after players’ careers were over.
Those plays have become less and less frequent, though. Hits like the one Vontaze Burfict delivered to the head of Antonio Brown are being penalized out of the game. Peel back blocks like the one delivered by Brown’s teammate JuJu Smith-Schuster to Burfict a year later in retaliation would be a quick way to a suspension these days. Football is violent and damaging, but it’s trying to be safer.
Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carrol famously put out an instructional video years ago on how their team had found success with their tackling, trying to make the game safer. The rugby-style techniques were designed to minimize blows to the head and neck area of players, hoping to cut down on the number of concussions and injuries. Teams across the many levels of football have embraced the new approach at tackling, which can be seen more and more as time goes on.
Football has always been a collision sport, as Blackistone points out, but it is evolving. Better tackling, penalizing hits to head, and new concussion protocols are trying to ensure the safety of future generations of players.
In his article Blackistone asks if he, as a fan, is not complicit in the damage players accumulate playing the game. I think the opposite is true. By continuing to show support for the game as it changes to be safer, fans signal that player safety can be put at the forefront of the game. The bone-jarring hits that left players in unconscious heaps are waning, but we remain.
For Blackistone, his decision to continue to watch may be what he calls addiction. For me, it’s love. A love shared by countless fans. A love that led to the outpouring of support for Damar Hamlin. A love that brings us together more than it tears us apart.
