It's true, we manage not to think about very real dangers we face every day, and though we're thinking about the danger of catastrophic injury in football at the moment, we'll return it to our mental back burners soon enough. Or at least most of us will.
John Madden likes to point out, during the inevitable shot of Archie and Olivia Manning in the stands of a game one of their sons is quarterbacking, how miserable the couple looks, and how unhappy every parent of every football player looks during every game. They're thinking about very real dangers.
Football games are many things to many people, but at bottom, for the players, they are things to be survived intact. When one doesn't, as Everett apparently didn't Sunday, all we can do is feel bad for him, be thankful that such a thing is so rare and demand that every precaution is taken to prevent it.
Kevin Everett's in a world of hurt, but he's also in good hands. Most football players who suffer injuries like his aren't so lucky. They're high school kids. One of them, Chris Canales of San Marcos, Texas, formed a foundation with his dad called Gridiron Heroes. Its mission is to provide immediate and long-term help for high school players who sustain catastrophic spinal cord injuries.
If you're having trouble making it OK for yourself to just go back and enjoy the next batch of games, you might want to have a look. Also check out the Mike Utley Foundation, formed by the Detroit Lions lineman who was paralyzed in an NFL game in 1991. It's hoping to find a cure for paralysis caused by spinal injuries.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Pats sneak camera into super-secret location: The field [PERMALINK]
The fracas over the New England Patriots "spying" on the New York Jets during Sunday's game in New Jersey is an early leader for dumbest controversy of the year honors, though to be fair Terrell Owens hasn't even started warming up yet.
NFL security officials confiscated a video camera and tape from a Patriots employee who had been pointing the camera at the Jets bench. The league has a rule against teams having video recording devices in the coach's booth, the locker room or on the field during games.
Why does the league have that rule? For the same reason it has a rule governing the length of players' socks. The NFL likes rules.
So the league is investigating, there is word of similar incidents involving the Patriots in Detroit and Green Bay last year, and the Patriots could be in danger of losing future draft picks or even having to forfeit the game, which they won 38-14.
Let's not get into the cloak and dagger details because, really, who cares? If there's a rule against video cameras and the Pats had a video camera, let 'em pay, though talk of forfeiture is beyond overkill. The last time an NFL game was forfeited was in 1921, the year before the American Professional Football Association changed its name. This can't possibly have been the most serious game-day rule violation since then.
Punish the Patriots if that's what it takes to keep the suits -- and various Pats haters around the world -- happy. Then get rid of that rule.
What the Pats are accused of doing is "spying" on the Jets coaches as they sent signals to the defense. My understanding of spying must be different from the NFL's. Watching a guy flapping his arms while standing in the middle of 70,000 people and in front of a national TV audience doesn't qualify. Even if you point a camera at him.
I mean another camera, aside from all the legal cameras that can be pointed at him.
For the price of a ticket -- assuming the Patriots as an organization can't find a free ticket somewhere -- the Pats can put a guy in Row 12 with a video camera and record the opposing team's defensive signals to their heart's content. But because the guy's standing on the sidelines it's cheating? Kinda nutty, don't you think?
The Patriots may have been trying to steal the Jets' signals for immediate or future use, but there's nothing wrong with stealing signals. It's a fine and respectable art. If it weren't, teams wouldn't need signals that are coded.
The problem is when teams get sneaky about it, hiding a spy in some cranny of the home stadium that the visitors don't have access to or using listening devices to spy on huddles or locker-room meetings. Where a team has an expectation of privacy, it should get privacy. A guy standing on the sideline and flashing semaphores to the middle linebacker can't expect privacy. Again: That's why the signals are coded. That's why the code should be changed every now and again.
The Jets and Patriots are bitter rivals who aren't shy about accusing each other of all kinds of dastardly deeds, so it's worth noting that this accusation came from the league, not the Jets, and that the Jets don't seem to be using it as an excuse for having their hats handed to them on Sunday. I don't think the Jets have a signal, after all, for "let Ellis Hobbs run a kickoff back 108 yards."
If what the Patriots did to the Jets Sunday is cheating, then what the Pittsburgh Steelers did to the Cleveland Browns is cheating too.
The Steelers had way better football players. Is that fair?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Quick question for Notre Dame fans [PERMALINK]
Who ya liking right now, Charlie Weis or Ty Willingham?
Previous column: Ode to Ron Jaworski
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his MySpace page.
Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)
Salon Directory (browse by topic)