SALON

Thursday, Dec 6, 2012 7:45 PM UTC

Can football change?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell talks to Time about how his league does and doesn't need to adapt

By

Topics: Roger Goodell, NFL, Health, Sports, Time magazine, , ,

Can football change?

For an organization facing at least one existential crisis, the NFL is thriving.

Time magazine’s cover story (Subscription required) looks at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s mission to maintain the game’s popularity and wild profitability despite evidence that for many players its lasting impact is immense suffering and early death. The latest freak tragedy came last weekend when Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend before committing suicide. Though Belcher’s death has not been convincingly tied to the NFL’s greater problem of tackle-related concussions, it’s not a becoming association for a sport desperate to rehabilitate its image. Belcher was the fourth player or former player to commit suicide in eight months.

Football has always been a dangerous assault but after decades the status quo is under assault. Time:

The NFL is being sued by some 4,000 ex-players, plus nearly 1,500 of their spouses and children, who allege that the league “deliberately ignored and actively concealed” information about concussions for decades.

A recent Boston University study found additional cases of the degenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in deceased players. Time asserts that “after years of downplaying the dangers of concussions, the NFL has instituted policies and rules to reduce the risk of long-term injury.” And with something resembling candor Goodell said “It doesn’t take a lot to jump to the conclusion that constant banging in the head is not going to be in your best interest.”

But how much “constant banging in the head” is America willing to tolerate? Few will compIain about stricter rules on when concussed players must be pulled from games, but Goodell is also toying with more radical fixes like eliminating kick-offs, iconic, kinetic plays that also have high injury potential:

After a touchdown or field goal, instead of kicking off, a team would get the ball on its own 30-yard line, where it’s fourth and 15. The options are either to go for it and try to retain possession or punt. If you go for it and fall short, of course, the opposing team would take over with good field position.

The commissioner balances this trial balloon with an awareness that football fandom involves a certain amount of blood lust; he doesn’t want fans flipping channels and allegiances to Ultimate Fighting. Goodell told Time that football would retain its essentially violent nature: “We’re a far, far cry from touch football.” Reporter Sean Gregory added: “Can a commissioner who has proposed a longer regular season—which would mean more head banging—and put a violent game in the hands of under­qualified scab referees really claim to care about keeping players safe?”

Professional football will never be safe. It will always require very large men to enhance their bodies to the limits of human capacity (even if they adhere to the law and league rules) and then these supermen crash into each other at maximum speed. It will still involve the modern equivalent of gladiators, sacrificing themselves for glory and impressive if short-lived paydays.

One could argue that those are the decisions that adults in a free society should be allowed to make, though no one associated with the NFL is likely to do so in such terms. But that’s the status quo and that will continue until the league, the fans and the industry show as much support for individual players as they do for the game.

Alex Halperin is news editor at Salon. You can follow him on Twitter @alexhalperin. More Alex Halperin.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 14 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
240 points241 points | 9 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
173 points174 points | 1 comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
172 points173 points | 44 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
51 points52 points | 8 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
36 points37 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations