When I was a kid, concussions were funny. It was kinda the football version of that pull-my-finger gag.
It’d be Monday Night Football, and you’ve got your buddies over. Maybe you’re munching on nachos. Then, some receiver runs over the middle and BOOM — a linebacker knocks him out of his socks. The poor receiver would stagger to his feet and wobble around, and the commentators would giggle about it: “Haha, he sure got his bell rung! He went to the wrong sideline, too! Heehee! Oh, he’ll feel that in the morning! Anyway…”
In fact, all the way until 2006, ESPN featured a segment called “Jacked Up!” It was nothing but devastating, ungodly collisions — and concussions galore.
No hyperbole, folks. Check out this snippet from 2004. It’s less than two minutes long. Note how gleeful and giddy the hosts are:
Was I lying? Did you see them giggling and laughing? I told you: Concussions were funny!
Now, as a football fan and/or semi-evolved ape who craves violence and mayhem, those hits were GREAT! You could almost imagine John Madden yelling “Boom!” from the studio booth. But in 2024’s culture and social norms, there’s absolutely no way whatsoever ESPN would even consider airing a show like this. In less than 20 years, it went from (literally) the highlight reel to The Book of the Banned.
Concussions are no longer funny. They’re deadly serious.
The more we’ve learned about neurological health, the more we realize that full-contact football is an inherently unsafe sport. You can have all the padding in the world, but your brain is still surrounded by a thick, hard skull. (As anyone who’s written about politics can attest, some skulls are thicker than others.) It’s sauteing in a thin brew of cerebrospinal fluid. Even if you run into a foot of pillowy-soft padding, whenever your body suddenly comes to a violent stop, your brain smashes into its skull.
Padding on the outside doesn’t negate the laws physics on the inside.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease that gets progressively — and sometimes exponentially — worse over time. It destroys your cognitive capabilities and can dramatically alter your personality, turning “good” people into frightening husks of their former selves. Victims commonly turn to suicide.
And even though the science is still in its infancy, it’s almost certainly linked to brain trauma — repetitive blows to the head.
To be fair, we’ve always suspected as much. We can’t claim TOTAL ignorance. We even used terms like “punch drunk” to describe prizefighters suffering from pugilistic dementia. In our heart of hearts, we knew it wasn’t healthy to get hammered in the head.
But we didn’t know it was THIS bad!
And this brings us to the NFL and the Miami Dolphins. A few years ago, they spent a first-round draft pick on a ‘Bama quarterback named Tua Tagovailoa. (Side note: At future autograph signings, the Bo Nix line will move A LOT faster than the Tua Tagovailoa line.) He had a great college career, but there were injury concerns.
His physical frame was on the smaller side.
Tua’s a good player. Not a GREAT player. He doesn’t seem to be on a Hall of Fame trajectory, but he’s a good, capable player with excellent accuracy. In July, the Dolphins signed him to a four-year, $214 million contract extension with a $42 million signing bonus.
Then, on September 5, he was knocked out of a game with a concussion. It was his third concussion in the NFL, and his second in under two years. It wasn’t pretty. I invite you to watch it, but you may have to view it on YouTube:
On Sunday, he’ll return to the field when the Miami Dolphins face the Arizona Cardinals. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would never admit it, but he doesn’t want Tua to play. Not on Sunday, not ever again.
Because, if Tua takes another headshot, it would probably end his career. That’s bad PR.
Worst case scenario, it could kill him.
And that just might kill the NFL.
Not right away, of course. But then again, CTE doesn’t kill you right away, either.
Pro football is deeply entrenched in American culture, but there are troubling signs of erosion: The “kneeling” controversy alienated a percentage of fans, and for many different reasons, younger Americans are less likely to watch or play the game. It’s a sign of the times: Facebook is more popular than face masks.
But the biggest issue is the risk of brain damage.
In a recent survey, 92% of parents worried about brain damage from tackle football. And 91% doubted if helmets provided adequate protection.
If kids don’t play the game, in 20 years, there is no game.
The NFL is a giant, powerful monolith, but nothing lasts forever. One big moment can change everything. It can frighten away sponsors and parents — decimating both their pipeline and profit model.
We can liken it to the Death Star: Sure, the NFL is so big and so all-encompassing, it seems indestructible. Like, it’s just so omnipresent, you couldn’t imagine the universe without it!
But if you look closely, there’s a certain, specific target (no bigger than a womp rat) that can blow the whole damn thing to smithereens.
And on Sunday, it’s located in Tua Tagovailoa’s head.
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