The Chris Moeller Archives

Somehow I find the "time-honored" "everybody is doing it" defense entirely unremarkable. If true, that's just a larger indictment of the culture of the NFL, Commissioner Goodell included. Neither the coaches, nor the commissioner, nor the owners, are risking life and limb on the field, the players are doing that. The violence of the game, inherent to a point, but also magnified by this culture, already makes the average Sunday at the stadium look like a cockfighting match, some of the roosters writhing on the ground in agony while others stand preening over their laid out bodies.

It's political action by retired players that have finally forced this issue into the spotlight. The commissioner, as recently as his last appearance before Congress, denied the link between his business and early-onset Alzheimer's and suicidal depression, but many players testified before Congress, and have been publicly outspoken, even blended authoritarian figures like Mike Ditka. Former Bears standout Dave Duerson committed suicide because of constant and unmanageable head pain, choosing to shoot himself in the chest so that doctors could study what football did to his brain.

I'm pissed at the behavior of modern-day players. On one hand, I recognize that this is the system they are forced into, a particularly insidious one in which the most brutal violence operates purposefully off-the-grid so that league officials can wag their fingers if and when the details are uncovered, even as they reap the financial benefits of marketing the violence. Yet individually, the players' ignorance of-- or inability to internalize-- a story like Duerson's is mind-boggling to me. That failure of the rank-and-file to grasp the economic realities of an enterprise that makes their bosses billionaires, but refuses to even guarantee their service contracts says all the wrong things about the "education" they supposedly received when they were enrolled in that taxpayer-subsidized developmental league called "college football."

Where is the camaraderie among the players? I know their union is for shit compared to Major League Baseball's, and this is likely part of the reason it is, but there has been notable collective action, earned successes by standing together as men. That professional equality and commitment to fair play and sportsmanship gets undercut every time one of them tries to supplement their Sunday salary with their coach's pocket change in return for a "cart-off" hit against one of their brothers.

Goodell has terrific culpability in this, but he's also the man with the power and position to send the message that player safety is more than just a public relations concept that the NFL needs to manage. If I had my way, I would have him ax the egomaniacal Williams for good, take away his livelihood just the way Williams has preached it inside the locker room, where your opponent is your mortal enemy, "squealers" are considered traitors, and cameras are not allowed. I'll start the ball rolling by contributing $10 to the cause.