The sad thing is, like always SOUTH PARK isn't that far off. In fact, every year the NFL is spending so much more time and money trying to soften America's hardest sport that by the time my kids are old enough to play (note: I currently don't have kids) it might very well have mutated into some castrated hybrid of soccer, basketball and two-hand touch, where players constantly fake injuries and spend most of their time running back and forth almost uncontested because all but the softest of contact has been made illegal.
The one-game suspension of Ed Reed - including a withholding of his $400k+ game pay - is the first suspension to come down the pipeline as part of the defenseless receiver 3-strike rule. That is, since Ed Reed has been called 3 times for a helmet to helmet tackle of a receiver and now the NFL's making an example out of him. As a Ravens fan I'm infuriated but as a football fan I'm just disgusted.
Last year I wrote about how the NFL's coming down on the bounty practice is the beginning of a softer NFL which I, and most American men (admit it or not) will not appreciate. Or at least should not. Though perhaps the growing softness of American men will make this growing softness of our current #1 sport a viable future. And maybe they go hand in hand. If so, we need to stop this shit right now.
Have you ever watched a football game? If you have, you've noticed that the loudest unconscious exclamations don't come when somebody scores, nor do they come during a pick or a big run or anything like that. No, the most visceral part of the game and, therefore, the most wide-reaching and human part of it is hitting. And while we all love a good pass or huge run, nothing gets the blood flowing like a hard punishing hit. That's why people watch football and not soccer. Because soccer is slow and hands-off. Football is the finest representation of war, a team battle testing who's the fastest AND the strongest AND the smartest AND simply the best able to take a hit and get back up. America was founded on taking a beating and jumping back up. Washington escaping a losing battle by crossing the Delaware. The Battle of Fort McHenry. ROCKY.
Now I get it, something should be done about all the punch drunk old football players. And I can see the point that headhunting, while perhaps entertaining, is a dangerous practice. While I think nothing is a true sport without a real threat of death, I understand wanting to protect the players and to teach youth better hitting practices. But as they start enforcing rules like this more rigidly they create an environment in which players begin to grow afraid of hitting. Ed Reed is not a headhunter. He doesn't even have a reputation as a dirty hitter. And the three offenses stretch over 3 seasons. This is why his appeal of the suspension was effective (he'll get to play, he'll just have to pay a $50,000 fine). But he shouldn't have to waste time on bullshit like this. Especially because let's be honest, he's just trying to tackle and receivers turn in mid air, get at crazy angles at high speed and often it's impossible to know where their head's gonna be, much less to be able to avoid it while you're also running at top speed to keep up. So of course this rule is really to make sure more receivers catch the ball to score more points.
I know the NFL is starting to try and run its games like an industry. Hinder the defense more, favor the offense they score more TD's and more people watch, they make more money, so on. Just like a couple weeks ago when they fined Baltimore for not putting Ed Reed on its list of possible injured players, a list which seemingly has no benefit to anybody but gamblers as to list everybody with some sort of an injury on a football team 11 weeks in is about as revealing to opposing coaches as listing everybody who might have exhibited some flu-like symptoms would be to an HR department. Some motherfuckers will call in sick, some won't; some will play all season with a torn labrum and others will be perfect and then take one bad hit, break their forearm and be out for the rest of the season.
But the interesting thing about these two bullshit league penalties against the Ravens organization - they're both centered on Ed Reed. Why? What's got their panties in such a bunch?
It's the fact that he's old school. Baltimore, for all intents and purposes, is old school. It's rough and tumble, with an ugly quarterback and even uglier wins. They hit HARD. It's not all this pretty-boy twirling ballerina QB bullshit, not cover-boys Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Every game is a slugfest. And Ed Reed, at 34, is a living OG from before all these enhanced receiver rules and hitting fines, from back when the league hadn't tried to start marketing itself to gentrified suburban fathers and conservative mothers who write angry letters when a pop star flashes a middle finger during a halftime show.
Ed Reed and Baltimore scare the NFL. That's why in spite of an 8 and 2 record, including wins over the Patriots, the Steelers, and, in fact, their whole division, Baltimore still gets no respect. Because Bernard Pollard lays motherfuckers out. And Ed Reed's been playing since half the league was in pee wee football and still can ring a bell. And that's been the Ravens' modus operandi since they landed in Baltimore.
And all y'all pussy motherfuckers can talk shit and sit back and wag your fingers, saying football should be safer. But I ask you, then, what about coal mines? What about oil rigs? What about other high risk jobs that don't pay even a tenth as good as being a pro football player - should they soften those up too? I think so; hell, these guys risk their lives for peanuts. So where are the huge fines for death and dismemberment and shortened lives for those workers? Where are the half a million a head fees for men killed in a mine collapse? The recent payment from BP is just now getting charged for an explosion that happened 2 years ago, destroyed a region already struggling to recover, and killed 11 people. And that money is going to the environment, not the victims' families.
But seriously, wanna take violence out of football? Why not take violence out of action movies. Instead of epic battles have everybody talk out their differences and come to an understanding. And we can fine reality shows for disgusting incidents of drunken bad girls hitting each other. And instead of people ever saying what they really mean, we can simply always think of what would be the most passive way to express ourselves and avoid confrontation (they've been doing it in L.A. for years). And, yes, fine and punish defensive players so much that they're afraid to hit so those pretty boy throwers and fancy-dancing catchers can do more of their point racking up and reception gloating.
But I warn you, as you gentrify football more and more, there will come a time when Americans, finally (hopefully) remembering the values of toughness and competition which made us great, will switch the channel to greater battles. To sports with harder hits and more risks (extreme sports come to mind). And then the NFL will have to scramble to put in arena league rules. And then it'll truly be over.
- Ryan
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