Only a Game. A Hunger Game.
Dec. 1st, 2012 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIt has been a mere ticking of hours since the unthinkable tragedy of events in Kansas City earlier today. Almost as unthinkable, though, is that any civilized human being would consider going forward with a game on the site of the back end of this day's events.
Yet they are.
One league source in the NFL office said officials were still trying to decide Saturday morning whether the game will be played on Sunday as scheduled. He said his guess was that the game would not be postponed or canceled, due to the complications of when to re-schedule the game in the remaining weeks of the season, or how a cancellation might affect the other 30 teams in the league in terms of competitive fairness.
"There is a ripple effect,'' the source said. "It's not simply two teams affected here. I'm not sure in recent history we've ever just canceled a game. But what's under consideration are all the factors involved if they don't play, when do they play? It's a pretty tight schedule to try and make a game up at some later point. These things have to be thought through. Nobody wants to play a football game right now if you're a Kansas City Chief, but what does that do to the other 30 teams? It gets a little complicated from a schedule standpoint and a competitive standpoint.
What a load. This isn't the Super Bowl we're talking about here- or even a marginally important matchup between teams in contention for a division lead or a playoff spot. These are two teams who, between them, have won exactly four games all season. The only thing keeping it from a unanimous "dog of the day" designation is that the Bills are hosting the Jaguars tomorrow. The only people with a legitimate interest in the continuation of this gladiatorial combat are sports bookies and emergency medical practices.
Yet I am totally not surprised that Carolina has been ordered to get on a plane to the site of the second death, and that they will almost certainly be compelled to hit and grunt and satisfy the bloodlusts of those in the stands and in the two television markets that are likely the only ones assigned this dog. (Then again, this is a Fox game, so I wouldn't be surprised if they show it to more of the country just for the watching-NASCAR-for-the-crashes crowd.)
For this is the National Football League, home of America's most manly, manly men. Men!
It's a league where coaches coach, days after burying their own children. Where players are condemned for taking a Sunday off to attend the birth of their own children- in a sports culture where many baby daddies run an out pattern as far as they can get from the depositories of their sperm. Where they play in the rain and the hurricane before disrupting the mighty machine of network ratings and incessant gambling.
I know, the league is opposed to anybody betting on the outcomes. Officially. And yet they provide comprehensive injury reports, and stagger start times, all for the benefit of the billion dollar industry that it sends its 20-something man-children to perform for.
Many years ago, before the AFL merger, the National Football League named its divisions alliteratively rather than regionally. The West Coast teams were in the Coastal; the current NFL North comprised the Central; Giants and Browns competed in the Century; and, most to the current point, the rivalry of the Eagles, Redskins and Cowboys was contained within....
the Capitol.
Yes, Vince Lombardi and Pete Rozelle had foretold the future coming of the Hunger Games. These Tributes are slightly older, but they, too, are drafted into combat, equipped with the deadliest of weapons and made up in a controlled season-long Arena to attract sponsors. They do not literally fight to the death, and only one has ever died on the gridiron, but plenty of others have been paralyzed, near-paralyzed, concussed into permanent punch-drunkenness, and, at least twice now this year, killed by their own hand.
Eleanor cannot stand the sight or even sounds of the sport. Emily's been to one game with me and cares about it today as little as she did in that pouring-rain pigmess of a Sunday. I follow the Bills, in recent years mostly out of that same NASCAR-for-the-crashes fascination, but if they go forward with this meaningless combat on the literal grounds of a suicide, I don't know if I will ever be able to stand another of their games, or any game of the sport, ever again.
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 06:57 pm (UTC)I wanted to comment on your post. I'm a lifelong football fan. I'm originally from Chicago, so the Bears were my team of choice. After retiring from law in 2004, I went back to school and became a massage therapist. I was a therapist for the Detroit Lions for two seasons...2006-7 and 2007-8. Then they went 0 and 16 so it wasn't on my watch.
I'd never been any sort of insider in pro sports. It was a very enlightening experience. Unlike NASCAR, which at least gives the vaneer of flying the flag and serving up mom and apple pie every weekend, pro football is a no nonsense megabusiness where talented young men are chewed up and spit out on a whim. For every NFL player, there are dozens of athletes just as talented, just as hungry, waiting to take their spot. The recent interest in head injuries is interesting, as it is merely paying lipservice to something the medical people have known for a long time. Players do what they have to do to make it in the NFL. And if that means playing hurt, hell, they've played hurt throughout their careers since high school. Acknowledging players can have long-term brain damage, as illustrated by the spate of suicides and deaths of former players, will be interesting to watch by the league in the next few years. I worked on a player pre- and post-concussion and it was amazing to see.
So in reading the story on this unfortunate player in KC, the head coach gives a news conference saying how the thoughts and prayers blah, blah, blah....all the while dozens of elite athletes are jockeying for his spot and business goes on as usual. It's not a game. And nothing is going to stop it.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 07:26 pm (UTC)Since our game is blacked out today (something about humane treatment of prisoners), the CBS affiliate is holding out for one of the late games and there's an infomercial on the station now. That means I'm not being subjected to in-looks to this spectacle in Kansas City. I find this kind, as well.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 02:17 am (UTC)I was a terrible disappointment to my father. One year, he insisted that I go see my high school team play their traditional rival. I went, but left at halftime. The score was 0-0; there just didn't seem to be any point in sticking around further. Apparently it was the best-played game in both towns' history, and the second half was explosive. Whatever.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 02:40 am (UTC)I hope the League takes the woman's family's wishes into account when they make their final decision; however, if the game is cancelled, what is the policy for those who usher? Those who do the concession? The parking attendants and security whose paycheque comes on a hourly basis? How many people's livelihoods, right near the Christmas season, might end up taking a hit over this one person's tragic, selfish action?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 02:45 am (UTC)Such costs are belly button lint to the NFL. They earn no points with me for looking after their own.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 03:53 am (UTC)As usual in these scenarios, the little guy loses.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 11:56 am (UTC)