‘Offensive Play’: Why I’ve Watched My Last Superbowl

by Ernesto Tinajero 10-27-2009

Humans drug themselves with violence. Violence has been and continues to be a path for cathartic release and for entertainment. Only when we confess this sin in ourselves can we hope to hear the quiet voice of grace and forgiveness.

Most of us have heard of Bumfights and are rightly appalled. These videos pay homeless men (sometime women) to fight each other and to commit other acts of violence upon others or themselves. They have been rightly condemned — condemned as inhuman, condemned as hatred, condemned as exploitation of human suffering. I trust no good follower of Jesus could justify such evil.

I found myself equally convicted when I read Malcom Gladwell’s essay, “Offensive Play.” Mr Gladwell tracks how football players suffer head injuries due to playing the sport. After reading the article, I felt the prompting of the Spirit to abandon any support for football. The article hit me like ton of bricks.

Now, mind you, I have been a fan of the game since boyhood. I have been a Washington Redskins fan for over thirty years. I rooted for Sony Jurgensen, Billy Kilmer, John Riggins, the Posse, and Doug Williams. I think Coach Joe Gibbs was a genius. I think Coach Jim Zorn still deserves a chance to prove himself. Yet just one article made me rethink and give up being a fan.

I think I believed the sport’s equipment was protecting the players. It is not. In reality, playing the sport leads to head trauma, leads to lifelong pain, leads to lifelong needless suffering. One would think that the head trauma comes from the spectacular hits in the heat of the battle, and with the right policing, it could be contained. But the reality is even more forbidding. Even just practice has too many damaging head collisions. I simply feel it is immoral to get entertainment from an activity that is so damaging to another human being.

I know the arguments: the players are both aware of the dangers and are paid handsomely for playing in the NFL. I also know that similar arguments can be made for the Bumfights, with the exception in terms of scale of glory and payment. But would paying homeless people millions to beat on each other make it any more moral? I am unconvinced.

I know it is true that the players are free to choose to play or not, but I can’t get the images of Mike Webster, Terry Long, and Andre Waters out of my head. They all died lonely deaths after their once powerful bodies where betrayed by too many hits to their heads. Their suffering has become a moral wall I have run into. For me, it is a matter of repentance and following the prince of peace. I have watched my last Superbowl.

portrait-ernesto-tinajero1 Ernesto Tinajero is a freelance writer in Spokane, Washington who earned his master’s degree in theology from Fuller Seminary. Visit his blog at beingandfaith.blogspot.com.

Categories: Violence and Nonviolence

Tags: billy kilmer, bumfights, coach joe gibbs, collisions, deaths, doug williams, Football, Homeless, homeless person, human suffering, jim zorn, john riggins, jurgensen, power, Repentance, trauma, Violence, washington redskins

scollins01

I agree there are different levels of violence. I used the word violence
because it was frequently used in other comments as a description of tackle
and block. I was in no way taking a pacifist stance and labeling football
as a "violent sport" or comparing it to dog fighting or UFC for that
matter. What I was questioning, in entertainment is there a line drawn on
what is acceptable and what that line is based on? The level? I agree when
we say violent we're not talking about on field deaths but the watching the
effect of two people slamming into each other. I'm sure I'll get slammed
for this, but would the early Christians find it entertaining?

In a healthy discussion, I don't think you can just push it aside by saying
the players signed up and get payed for it. Whether we want to admit it or
not we enjoy seeing the opposing team get taken down. If it were flag
football we there wouldn't be much tension or explosive excitement.

I just find it amusing how we often rush to rationalize or justify our
participation as a bystander by pointing out how we aren't really engaged in
it or that no one is being killed.

nuclearferret

What do we hear about same sex marriage and abortion? Don't like it? Don't do it, don't participate in it.

squeaky

For sure--isn't it ironic?

titopoet

I am choosing not to support or watch all football, (much to my surprise as it has been harder than I thought) until there is equipment or rules change to make head trauma and head injury not part of the game. In most practice, kids are subjected to what amounts to several car accidents in terms of head trauma. 50 or so kids die every year from the sport, and countless others suffer concussions.

Also, boxing use to be as big baseball and was Americas top sports sixty years ago, but now it is seen as too violent, and most parents no longer allow their sons to play, which caused the sports decline. Most of the new research into the damage (not danger, as danger implies possibility of damage and the new research makes the strong case that damage is inherent in the sport) of football is coming to light. When Gladwell's article came out, many of the posts in the blogosphere where not pro or con toward football, but saying that they would not let their sons play the sport after reading the essay. The NFL understands this threat and is busy trying to disprove the science. That is the question: If the game cannot be played without suffering brain damage, do I let my son play? And if I say no to my son, how can I support brain damage for others' sons.

mscynthia

If some sports are so dangerous . . Why not play more music?

Have you see the Venezuelans teach us how to play the Mambo?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWs9G-c_pcs

I think they just cleaned Bernstein's clock on this performance.

This young man also throws a pretty mean south paw on his local team when he's not playing fiddle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IxaNyVjDKU

I have never seen any musicians get head injuries from playing music to roughly. In fact music is fantastic for the brain.
And its a lot of fun too.

Chris "Jesdisciple"

Maybe we just finally got disgusted at watching baseball players scratching in forbidden spots or spitting.
Lol.

Mr. Tinajero's title was "Why I've Watched My Last Superbowl." Does that mean that he'll continue to view the regular season games and the playoffs and simply confine his nonwatching to the Super Bowl? (Maybe just tune in to catch the half-time show?) Or if his boycott extends to other games, would he extend it to include college and high school games.
I take it he meant the whole NFL, not sure about college and high school games. I'd say they're easier to justify as the game becomes less about money. High school football, for example, is pretty pure as a sport and a traditional part of growing up - although it could be argued that coaches drive the players too hard. College football still doesn't have salaries, but I think colleges lavish their players with too many benefits. I want the game to be about the game, not about livelihood. I would much rather see the pros in more productive livelihoods (probably not including politics), and getting beat up for a living sounds too much like slavery.

BuckeyeDon

I couldn't agree more, Squeaky. Further, BrotherMarcus' comment about the carnage on the highways makes me wonder why we so willingly accept our car-centered living arrangements. If 40,000 people were being killed and untold numbers of others permanently injured every year by some disease, we'd be having pink ribbon campaigns and all kinds of fundraisers to find a cure for it.

But since this is off topic for this thread, I'll end it here.

Peace,
Don

Nathan Bedford

Mr. Tinajero's title was "Why I've Watched My Last Superbowl." Does that mean that he'll continue to view the regular season games and the playoffs and simply confine his nonwatching to the Super Bowl? (Maybe just tune in to catch the half-time show?) Or if his boycott extends to other games, would he extend it to include college and high school games.

Look, I'm no fan of watching these people injure each other either. But the fact is that like it or not, football has replaced baseball as our national pastime. Maybe we just finally got disgusted at watching baseball players scratching in forbidden spots or spitting.

canucklehead

Would I consider myself American? good question, may Cdns who go to Europe wear the Maple Leaf on their backpacks/sleeves to distinguish themselves from Americans; I'm not too easily threatened and long ago came to accept that when a mouse sleeps with an elephant, the mouse is invariably affected by every grunt and groan from the behemoth; all things being equal, I still think 144,000 Americans will get to heaven

canucklehead

Yeah, we have the Canadian Football League with teams like the Edmonton Eskimos and end zones roughly the size of the state of Alaska. Some of your NFL heroes played here for years = Warren Moon, Doug Flutie, Joe Theisman, Joe Kapp, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, ...

canucklehead

Hey girls, careful, Big Sister is listening.

Lord_Voldemort

First off, few of us here are pacifists. Violence (I'm not sure that's the best word for it but we'll make do.) is not inherently evil. Especially at the (still!) relatively low level involved in pro football.

There are degrees of violence: warfare, gang activity, shootings, assaults with knives -- these are things that tend to get people killed and not in the sense of a latent brain injury that manifests itself 20 years later but immediately.

It's not enough to say football is violent, we need to ask: just how violent? On-field deaths are pretty rare at all levels of the game. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem, but it's a fact that should be acknowledged. That alone puts a big gap between football and dogfighting. (which is the comparison that Gladwell makes in his otherwise excellent piece)

You can't just say "football is violent" as if that ends the debate all by itself. Unless you're arguing with a pacifist.

LV

scollins01

I see a lot of people distancing themselves from the question of whether the violence is right or wrong by transferring that responsibility to the players, the rules, the equipment, the money. As if the violence is a justified means to a greater outcome- entertainment.

I wonder if the same entertainment value could be sustained if pro ball was played as flag football. Because it's really about the strategy and progression of the game, not the violence right?

Amy_Sojo

So you're not saying that everyone should abandon football, ...only those who "hope to hear the quiet voice of grace and forgiveness" and follow the prince of peace. (no pressure.)

When someone can't make a point without creating a false dilemma, I don't find that very persuasive: I have never asked a fellow human being to suffer a head injury for the benefit of my pleasure. As a person with a conscience, I believe that would be wrong. But that belief is irrelevant to my decision to watch sports.

I think some fans overestimate their own involvement in the game. Isn't it possible that people would still play football, even if no one was watching? hmm. (If a tree falls in the forest...) It would be interesting to survey the NFL and ask them why they play. I bet #1 would be, "Because I love to play the game." Money, fame & attention might be runner-ups. :-) I doubt many would say, "Because our fans have asked us to suffer head injuries for their pleasure, and we feel obligated to comply."

I could get behind an article that said "Wow- I just found out how dangerous playing football can be, those of you with kids might want to read this before you decide whether or not to let them play!" But not one that questions my conscience and my commitment to Christ for deciding to watch the next Superbowl.

squeaky

The violence of football is why I don't feel that bad about players getting paid so much. They truly are sacrificing their bodies for the game, most of them actually for the love of the game (as opposed to the love of money).

What is being forgotten here is that not all football players get paid the huge multi-million dollar contracts. In fact, most on a given roster do not. Especially if they are perennial backups.

I had a student who was an offensive lineman for the Miami Dolphins. He never started. But as a backup, he got injured and his career ended before it even began. As a backup, he never got the big contract, yet he got the life-long injury that he will always deal with. He sometimes would have to stand up during my lecture because he was in too much pain to sit. He later had hip surgery to relieve some of the pain. I doubt very much the NFL paid for that surgery (Matt Birk, center for the Ravens (former Viking) is leading a group to get the NFL to take care of its players beyond their playing days--especially the old-school players who did not make the huge contracts).

Football is a violent sport, no doubt about it. And many who play, be it in high school, college, or the NFL, will live with pain from injury for the rest of their lives. It's still a choice, though, and a wicked fun game to watch and play, and if I were a guy, I would definitely have played football in high school.

To me, the concern is more about whether the NFL really does enough to protect its players. I read an article in ESPN magazine a few years ago about how it has been quite the struggle to get the NFL to be concerned about head injuries.

squeaky

Well, it would solve a lot of problems if our culture weren't built around the car. And it will sure save you a lot of money if you go that route. Think of it--no more gas to buy, no more car payment or auto shop bills, and you would be in really good shape!

xfree9

You and I may not want to live in those countries, but what about the progress they are making, and are they going deeper and deeper into debt, or do they carry a surplus? I don't know those answers, though.

titopoet

Go Zags!!

BrotherMarcus

And it's a commentary on our consumerist culture that has nothing better to focus on.

Yeah, like how dangerous football is ...