rolling American football death spiral thread

saying cte is a contributing factor or causes aggression and impulsive behavior in sufferers is like halfway to absolving them of their crimes. otherwise why would you be mentioning it? or are you saying that they had physical conditions that lead to violent behavior but that they are nevertheless 100 percent responsible for their crimes

NA making the classic error of mistaking an explanation for an excuse.

if you don't think this is going to be turned into an excuse you're kidding yourself

man, I don't know how to answer questions like that. nobody absolves drunk people for doing things that they otherwise would never have done sober.

i am completely perplexed by your line of thinking. do you not believe in the ability for brain disorders to affect people's behaviour? are you mad at reality?

Yes, someone impaired by brain damage bears less culpability for doing a murder than someone not impaired by brain damage. I don't see the issue there. They can still be culpable enough to jail for six months until they hang themselves in their cell because every day is a waking nightmare.

I'm now retrospectively mad at my grandmother because she acted like an asshole sometimes when she had alzheimer's

really not eager for all the shitty things these guys have done to be pinned on their CTE

― na (NA), Thursday, September 21, 2017 4:03 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is literally all i have to say about this, i don't know why i'm bothering with any of the rest of it. the nfl is garbage, if you watch it you're complicit, have fun, bye

otherwise why would you be mentioning it?

because it is of interest on a thread where we discuss why this sport should not continue to exist in its current form. one of the reasons being that it helps create murderers by selecting people who may already be inclined to violent aggression and then paying them to hit their heads repeatedly until they are insensate, over a course of several years.

i'm willing to give bad people a few percentage points of theoretical absolution if i can in turn pin them on the league

i can't really even watch the game anymore, I just follow some of the stories like this and occasionally check boxscores. it's mostly CTE-related but also just the culture around the entire league in this day and age seems more and more garbage.

four of the ten people in our office talk about pro football way too damn much, really hoping this whole death spiral picks up speed

There are already so many reasons to stop watching the NFL. I don't need "CTE might make 'em murder people". "CTE might make 'em commit suicide to figure out why their brain won't stop screaming" was plenty.

The couple guys who shot themselves in the chest to make sure their brains could be examined is just the most devastating detail of all this to me

The link between traumatic brain injuries and increased violence and other psychiatric disorders is pretty clear at this point.

What kind of finalized it for me was the fact that it seems that CTE is also just the result of the day-to-day low-level physical punishment incurred from playing football, just the "regular" hits, not just the ones where a guy stands up and can't remember his name for a minute.

To be completely frank, what finally did it for me was XLIX. It's good that now I can support my argument against the atrocious joke of a sport that is american football based on medical science, but tbrr the game has been bullshit for years. The vast majority of the owners in the cartel are completely uninterested in parity or winning, and have no ties to their stadium towns. It's not remotely entertaining anymore. To wit, Magary's column today:

Now, I could bitch all day at the NFL to do something about all of these problems in order to field a better product, but you and I know that’ll never happen. The NFL worked very hard to cultivate all of their entrenched, long-term woes, and they’re not going away anytime soon. What they need, then, is a cheat. They need a cheap, quick fix to help polish the turd, and I think I have just the kind of ridiculous, shortsighted answer they might require:

Legalize holding.

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/9/19/16314082/nfl-ratings-colin-kaepernick-los-angeles-rams-owners-money

url kinda covers it all huh

that's just seo. it's a pretty good piece, though it could have gone in harder. also IT MENTIONS ESPORTS HI TOMBOT

I didn't need SB Nation to tell me the NFL is boring as hell these days.

i have heard the cartel argument for a few years now. no argument.
the death spiral thread is way more active than the week three thread on a game night.

tbf tho these teams

.@criscarter80: Yes, I’m scared but football has given me everything I love.

An emotional Cris Carter on CTE in the NFL. Via @FTFonFS1 pic.twitter.com/X2d9Dkc16Y

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) September 22, 2017

sad to see how he contradicts himself again and again in that monologue

more or less saying my brain may be toast later but it was worth it. will sing a different tune i reckon if his brain goes south at a young age.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKXvMddW4AArTng.jpg:small

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/aaron-hernandez-cte.html

This will be like trying to figure out Ice cube's good day. "What game was he watching when..."

Xp

I should know better than to ask but is that presumably Trump quote real

the NFL is good again, I'm a fan now. thanks Trump.

I’m so conflicted right now

he repeats stuff so often in that quote that it starts to sound like a weird folk song.

"when the nfl ratings are down (massively, massively)" - a song for accordion and men's choir.

https://deadspin.com/report-california-class-action-lawsuit-against-pop-war-1819751848

Researchers confirm CTE detected for first time in a live person, according to exam of ex-NFL player https://t.co/Cxv3l0HUtj

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) November 15, 2017

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/22/magazine/22-leitch.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.jpg
Panthers vs. Bears, October 22. Photo: Scott Boehm/AP Photo

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/leitch-is-this-the-end-of-the-nfl.html

A few weeks ago, sportscaster Bob Costas told a group of students at the University of Maryland that “the reality is that this game destroys people’s brains” and that “the whole thing could collapse like a house of cards if people actually begin connecting the dots.” Costas is a smart man, and more than that, he is a survivor: One of the skills of his career has been understanding which way the winds are blowing and adjusting accordingly. For the past several years, he was the host of the pregame show for the most-watched NFL game every week, Football Night in America. He left the show this year and has been speaking out against the NFL ever since. For the past few years, it was reasonable to wonder whether defending the NFL was going to put you on the wrong side of history. It is becoming increasingly clear that that history is nigh.

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/12/5/16737164/steelers-bengals-dangerous-hits-ryan-shazier-vontaze-burfict-joe-mixon

Rough night

“I don’t like seeing that kind of football,” Gruden said.

“It’s an ugly night,” McDonough said

earlier in the broadcast both of these guys were constantly bemoaning all the penalty flags that were being thrown, and at one point Gruden started praising Burfict, implying that his willingness to get fined was part of what made him a great player to watch. can't have it both ways I guess.

will nfl return to leather helmets

excellent piece on the american football death spiral https://thebaffler.com/salvos/downward-spiral-roth

I assume at some point the NFL owners will decide that they don’t actually need anyone to play football during a football telecast.

Just 12 hours of fighter jet flybys, national anthems, breast cancer awareness, and artfully thrown penalty flags.

I’m glad for the revive because I needed to post this:
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/forget-about-colin-kaepernick-i-think-im-done-with-the-1821136817

It was the first time in a long time that I just decided not to watch an entire Steelers game. And while I missed the game, I didn’t actually miss it.

Damon didn't miss that feeling of being slightly distracted and intermittently entertained, interspersed with dozens of commercials and frequent tedium?

https://deadspin.com/fox-is-seeking-los-angeles-area-actors-who-can-pretend-1821152419

lol that url stub is very good

also the rams being one of the best teams immediately upon moving to LA and still not attracting any fans is a victory for humanity

whenever i'm talking football w/friends around here in L.A., I always try to mention "The San Diego Chargers" at least once and i've never once been corrected.

gaining two NFL teams no one wanted, teams that historically possess the exact same color scheme, is a recipe for hilarity.