Quote of the Week (NFL Edition)

Shortly after former NFL linebacker Junior Seau's tragic suicide in May, I published a post here regarding concussions and the NFL. In that post, I argued that most NFL players are well aware of the risks of football (not just concussions, but of injuries of all types), but that they choose to play anyway because the rewards are so large.

My argument was lent serious credence over the weekend by former running back (and one-time Patriot) Curtis Martin, who may have said more than he realized during his Hall of Fame induction speech in Canton (which, incidentally, was incredible in its candor and is definitely worth watching in its entirety). In discussing his mentor, Bill Parcells, Martin cited this line from the legendary coach:

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I've always believed one thing... You should never come out of the huddle, because you never know who's going in the huddle."
                                      - Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells, via Curtis Martin

Martin went on to describe his takeaway from Parcells' message—in the NFL, you're always replaceable. There's always some rookie somewhere who's right on your heels, itching for the opportunity to take your job (Drew Bledsoe, meet Tom Brady). Martin later admitted that nearly every year in training camp there was someone on the Jets roster who had more ability than him, but that he kept his job simply by "out-working everyone".

With all due respect to Martin's legendary work ethic, it's probably not the only reason he kept his job—a consistent willingness to shake off injuries and even concussions couldn't have hurt his case. Indeed, Martin would follow up his Parcells story by recounting a tale of having been knocked silly during one game, leaving him so dazed that he ended up inadvertently wandering into the Oakland Raiders' defensive huddle.

I wouldn't be surprised if Martin was back on the field later in that same game against the Raiders, not to mention the next week and the week after that. In fact, given his incredible durability in his career (he missed only 8 regular season games in his 11-year career, 4 of which were in his final season), I'd be almost certain that was the case.

The uncomfortable truth is that if he hadn't found a way to get back on the field, somebody else would have, and the fear of being replaced is never far from a professional athlete's mind. It's never easy to make the decision to step aside and take a few plays off, especially when in the heat of the battle. And yet, despite all of this, and knowing all of the risks inherent in football, Martin still says that he would let his own children play football, because he believes that the risks are worth the potential rewards (be they tangible or intangible).

Honestly, I find Martin's honesty in this regard to be refreshing. We all engage in behavior in our lives that is "risky", but we do it because we happen to assess the situation as "worth it", whatever the potential rewards from the situation may be. So we smoke, we drink, we eat red meat, we play the lottery, we invest in the stock market, we buy houses in Las Vegas in 2005 with interest-only mortgages, whatever. The point is, we're all adults here, and as such we're entitled to make our own decisions about which risks are and are not acceptable in our lives.

I'm fine with all of this, right up until the time that those same people try to blame others when the risks inherent in their actions blow up in their faces. Sure, the bank ripped you off, but it's your fault for not reading and understanding your mortgage documents. Yes, you have a serious brain injury, but it's your fault for rushing back onto the field when you couldn't actually see straight.

I sympathize with those players who played back before there was a full appreciation of the seriousness of brain injuries (concussions), and I certainly don't mean to be callous with respect to players like Seau and Dave Duerson, whose deaths were tragic by any definition. But we're seeing more and more athletes admitting that they know (and knew) the risks of playing through injuries, and decided that the risk of not playing was in fact greater than the risk of continuing to play. That's life in the NFL, and we fans know it just as well as the players do. As long as there's another rookie willing to step out on that field, we'll keep seeing veterans who are willing to sacrifice their health in order to keep their jobs. That's just football.

[Deadspin]

On Junior Seau and smoking

I'm still shocked by the news of Junior Seau's suicide on Wednesday. Seau was well-liked at every step of his career (this anecdote gives you a pretty good idea of why), and his premature death is an unspeakable tragedy, especially to those in his hometown of San Diego. It's even more troubling to learn that Seau followed in the lead of Dave Duerson by shooting himself in the chest, so that his brain could be studied to better learn the impact of head trauma (concussions) on long-term mental health.

Naturally, incidents like the Seau suicide tend to spur many of us into action, in hopes that we can learn some kind of lesson that will help prevent future tragedies. That reaction was evident in the following Twitter post from Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, re-tweeted by Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King:

Smith makes a fair point, but as I replied to him (and King), the information is, for the most part, there--it's just that many players choose to ignore it, because their careers often depend on such ignorance.

Concussion awareness organizations like the Sports Legacy Institute (founded by Chris Nowinski, a former pro wrestler whom I knew in college) have existed since the mid-2000s, inspired by a growing body of evidence surrounding head trauma. Their findings have clearly had an impact on the NFL, and the league has tried its best to respond to their recommendations.

To be fair to players like Seau and Smith (not to mention Duerson), their careers began and essentially ended before they could have benefited from the most recent research. But there's no excuse for current players to be engaging in this kind of behavior, given the NFL's new emphasis on preventing serious head injuries:

A four-month look at how the NFL handles concussions in a more tightly controlled environment shows that following the new rules remains extremely arbitrary. Many times, players ignore them. Sometimes, teams do. In other instances, there is a pact between the two to skirt them. 

While NFL teams have enacted smart and thorough mechanisms to help players deal with the dangers of concussions, some have found a way around them by simply waving off doctors on the hits that aren't clearly visible or where the player doesn't lose consciousness. Some are hiding concussion symptoms from doctors, players said in dozens of interviews. 

"In some cases, if you avoid the doctors, you can avoid the concussion exams," one AFC North player said, "and the doctors know you're avoiding them, but let you." 

Said one player, who is also a player representative: "The concussion rules are the best they can be. The league and the union have done a good job protecting players, but the truth remains, players are still hiding concussions, because they want to protect their careers. In some cases, teams know a player is concussed and let it go. Yes, that still happens." 

The NFL and players union might soon respond to holes in the policy by placing independent doctors on the sidelines during games, taking the decision out of the hands of the interested parties: the teams and players. But until then, some players will continue to put themselves at risk by doing whatever they can to stay on the field.

In this regard, I see significant parallels between concussions in the NFL and the smoking of cigarettes.

In this day and age, everyone knows the dangers of smoking, and everyone (at least, everyone in the NFL) knows the dangers of football and concussions. But for various reasons, people continue to light up, just like they continue to buckle up their chinstraps and take the field. Simply put, some people just don't care about the risks--they want the rewards. That's why people continue to take steroids, and it's also why people continue to invest in the stock market (though that's probably a topic best left for another day).

The only way this dynamic will change is if people stop watching football because of incidents like the Seau suicide, whether as a means of protest or simply out of disgust. Until that day comes, the rewards of an NFL career will continue to be so great (particularly for uneducated or under-educated kids from lower class families) that many players will simply overlook the risks, hoping that maybe they'll be one of the lucky ones.

Simply knowing about the risks isn't enough to prevent future tragedies like the Junior Seau story--knowing is indeed half the battle, but that still leaves the other half. We as a society need to actually respond to those risks in a way that affects future behavior. Otherwise, we'll be doomed to learn nothing from the Seau tragedy, just as many of us learned nothing from millions of smoking-related deaths around the world over the past few decades.

In a sense, maybe that's okay. NFL players are consenting adults, and if they choose to put themselves in harm's way despite knowing the risks, then that's certainly their choice. But we shouldn't pretend that they don't know better, because by now, they absolutely do. If nothing else, Junior Seau's death has at least assured us of that much. Hopefully, it will do even more.

[Twitter]
[CBS Sports]