Dunkirk NY – I had thought over the past two days that I might write a baseball essay, something on the state of the Yankees at the mid-point of the hot stove season. But after watching the Monday Night Football game on January 2, 2023 between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, wherein Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old backup safety for the Bills, playing due to an injury to starter Micah Hyde, suffered a death-threatening injury, it seemed more appropriate, on this rainy day with AML still laid up, to write about why I seldom watch football anymore.
It’s my bad luck to live in the Buffalo region, where the Bills reign supreme. Not to be able to discuss the Bills’ season is tantamount to having nothing to talk about (of course, there’s always the snow in a pinch). The Bills are the pinnacle of culture in the area, and the so-called “Bills Mafia” is known nationally. So I keep tabs on the Bills for the sake of having the ability to make small talk about them when the occasion requires it.
But I am not the football fan I was back in the 60s and 70s. Although I grew up in the NY metropolitan area, I became a Dallas Cowboys fan, partly because I went through a quick “Western” phase of my life as a teenager, and partly because I admired “Bullet” Bob Hayes, billed as the “fastest man alive.” Speed was my one great skill as an athlete, and Bob Hayes had come to the Cowboys from a track and field career where he had won Olympic Gold in the 100m dash. I watched the Dallas Cowboys to watch Bob Hayes do his thing, and that carried over into becoming a fan of the team under Tom Landry. But now, under Jerry Jones, the Cowboys are something of a clown show, and as they became “America’s Team,” I dropped out and became less and less a fan of both the team and the sport.
The phenomenon that finally turned me away from the game, however, is what I call the “cult of celebration.” It is now common in the NFL for players to celebrate every single thing that happens on the football field. Get a first down, celebrate. Get a touchdown, celebrate. Hit a player especially hard, celebrate. But the most galling celebrations of all are the ones that come after hard and punishing hits by defensive players. The sack of a quarterback calls for shows of strength by flexing arm muscles, growls, screams of fierce pleasure, and all other sorts of displays of “emotions.” It is expected. It is not conceivable to fans or players alike these days for a lineman who has just sacked a quarterback to get up, perhaps adjust a helmet or pad, and simply walk back to the huddle, having accomplished his objective. The requisite intimidating gestures and rituals must be performed, intended to show the opponent (but mostly the crowd) how fierce and tough the player is.
To me, it is the fact that attention and praise is heaped upon those who commit the fiercest violence that is at the heart of what’s wrong with the NFL as a sport. The hypocrisy on display right now by all concerned is blatant. You can’t have it both ways: you can’t glorify the vicious hits, the level of injuries, the crippling aftermath that happens to retired players later in life such as CTE or other debilitating conditions, and then turn around and feel bad for one player whose heart stopped while on the field of play, and lies in critical condition in a hospital. If the NFL, its players, and its fans are truly serious in their concern for Mr. Hamlin, then they all should immediately cease the mindless celebration of the violence inherent in the game.
Football is a violent game, and if you choose to play it or watch it, all well and good. But the excessive glorification and celebration of the violence is unnecessary. The game was a fine game when Bob Hayes played it. The violence was there, but not unduly celebrated. I don’t remember Bob Lily or Jethro Pugh or Randy White ever performing excessive displays of celebration while they played. It’s a mindset that only feeds on itself and demands ever-increasing attempts to top that last hit. Eliminating the celebration of the inherent violence in football lies at the root of creating a mindset where the game can be played well and skillfully, but without any undue reveling in the violence.