My opinion of the NFL sort of went full circle over the weekend. I ended up feeling better about it after the game than I did before kick-off. The game was a best-case-scenario for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in terms of entertainment value and competitiveness with outstanding plays made by both teams throughout. The game's only blemish came when Patriots receiver Brandin Cooks was knocked out of the game on a helmet-to-helmet hit from his blind side.
The Eagles and their fans finally have their Lombardi trophy which - and this has always been one of my pet peeves about the NFL - was presented by Goodell not to the team's quarterback, captain or coach but to the team's owner Jeffrey Lurie. The NHL does it right every year when the Commissioner hands the Stanley Cup to the winning team's captain.
I wrote these three paragraphs yesterday afternoon before the game:
Justin Timberlake held a press conference last Thursday - as is the requirement for the headliner of the Superbowl halftime show. Among other things, he confirmed that no special guests would be appearing alongside him for his 20 minute performance. He also made an offer to Patriots coach Bill Belichick that if all of his receivers were injured, Justin was ready to suit up and run routes himself. Very nice. Then came a question about his 3 year-old son perhaps running routes in the NFL some day. Timberlake replied with "he will never play football". He then moved on to a rambling explanation of how he just wants his son to become a great person whether or not he shows interest in the arts or sports or anything else. Goodell was probably doing a slow burn.
There were two newspaper articles this past weekend which, quite honestly, made me seriously question whether or not I will renew my Bills season tickets - a decision I will have to make within the next two or three weeks. I don't recall an NFL player named Rob Kelly who played five seasons at safety for the Saints and the Patriots between 1997 and 2001 before his career ended with a neck injury he suffered in training camp in 2002. On Friday, the New York Times published an article written by Kelly's wife Emily about her husband which I found quite disturbing. Starting in 2009 (seven years after his football career ended), Kelly began to suffer from mood swings, depression and weight loss which eventually qualified him for "total and permanent disability payments" under the NFL's pension plan. She says that her husband certainly recognized that football was a dangerous game but, along with many other former players, she states that "these men chose football, but they didn't choose brain damage". Emily Kelly's husband is now a shadow of his former self and she finds support within a group of wives and partners of former players suffering similar problems. I'm aware that we hear only about those former players who are suffering the long-term effects of a football career. I wonder, of the thousands of players who have suited up in the NFL, what percentage is more-or-less fine ten or more years afterward and what percentage is not.
The Globe and Mail's sports editorial writer Cathal Kelly penned a piece on Saturday entitled "The sun is setting on the NFL, and fast" in which he chronicles the multiple issues facing the league. Chief among them is the concussion and CTE issue which the league first denied entirely before finally, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, acknowledging the connection between football and brain injuries. Aside from that, the most concerning data point in Kelly's article comes from a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll of American males aged 18-49. Four years ago, 75% of this group said that they followed the NFL closely. Now, that number has plummeted to 51%. With the league's television ratings down 10% this season (compounded with an 8% drop last year), the NFL's popularity looks like it's about to fall off a cliff. Sure, it may stabilize at some point and may even recover a bit of lost ground but it's hard to see how. Kelly compares the NFL's declining popularity to Facebook which is also suffering from a drop in new accounts and in overall engagement. But, as Kelly points out, there is no other Facebook while sports fans have many other options. The NFL chalks up the drop in viewership to cable cord-cutting, an increasingly fragmented television landscape and fans tuning in on devices other than televisions. All plausible explanations for sure but how then can the NBA's improving television ratings be explained?
The Onion reported this fun fact last night on Twitter: "All of this year's Superbowl confetti was made from shredded concussion and CTE studies".
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