I like football but watching it on the weekend is a bit of a guilty pleasure. I don't mean that I could be doing other things, like folding laundry. Since it takes more than three hours to play a game made up of four fifteen-minute quarters, there is more than enough time for household chores. I mean that too many of the breaks in the action occur when injured players have to be tended to. Even though the TV viewer may be watching commercials for lite beer while the injured player is cleared from the field, you really can't ignore the fact that the game hurts people. By the time the season is a few weeks old, discussions of who is likely to win next week's game feature comparisons of the respective teams' injury lists.
Moreover, a growing body of evidence suggests that the injuries football players incur mar their lives not just for a week or a season but for the rest of their shortened lives. It may not be mainly on account of the injuries that grab headlines, like Viking running back Adrian Peterson's torn ACL, from which he made this season such a sensational recovery. While players with these kinds of disabling injuries rehabilitate, the games go on, and the behemoth linemen continue to inflict upon one another thousands of head blows, many of near concussive force. It isn't healthy to be as big as these men are. It's worse yet that they spend their careers ramming their bodies, often their heads, into one another.
It seems hard to deny that by watching I contribute in my own small way to the mayhem. After star quarterback Michael Vick was implicated in an interstate dog fighting ring, he pleaded guilty to a felony, spent time in prison, and, upon his release, was rejected by his former team, the Atlanta Falcons. The Philadelphia Eagles signed Vick to a contract over the objections of their animal-loving fans. But is watching football really so much worse than watching dogs tear each other apart? At least it's dogs that are being maimed. One feels disgust for the people who enjoy such "sport" but where does that put those of us who watch football games?
