Watching Football

Go Iggles. To the Super Bowl.  Go Andy Reid, he's still one of us.  To the Super Bowl.  An afternoon watching football's sudden death series after a season of Mizzou and Iggles, with an afternoon in the minor chill of West Chester University stadium to see the Rams live.  I'm entertained.

Perhaps, rapt in the strategy of each play, time out request, or taking best advantage of the game clock, to say nothing of the athletic talent and painstaking practice needed to express it, I've also acquired at least a small element of becoming a degenerate.  While I wish no player harm, the reality is that too many get harmed.  Each coach presents an injury list to the league and to the media every week.  There are always young guys on that list, some needing expert surgical care and most needing sophisticated diagnostics that cannot be done by the Nurse Practitioner at the bedside.  Kids get hurt doing this, though not without benefit to offset the risk.  Those who make it to the NFL get salaries that they could not otherwise attain.  The college kids, most of whom will not make it to the pros, get their education subsidized if they can take advantage of this, and have a chance at being publicly admired as a BMOC if only for a short time, public recognition that will never come their way again.  And they learn to be part of a team that distributes tasks, as well as to accept their own role, a very valuable experience adaptable to a lifetime in the workplace and in their community.  But at the risk of physical harm while still young, and if prospective data is accurate, physical harm and longevity reduction in the years that follow.

As I watch these games on TV, few quarters proceed from beginning to end without the referees having to stop the Game Clock due to an injury, one always attended by the trainer or assistant functioning as a low level EMT, then off to the Blue Tent which has become football's MASH Unit.  Rarely does the Head Coach join them.  He needs to strategize Plan B with different players whose joints and cerebrum have not yet been jolted.

Unlike Indy or NASCAR where anticipation of fiery crashes have become part of the spectator thrill, football has not yet descended to injury as part of the entertainment.  It is part of the strategy though, very much for coaches who shuffle talent, and for fans who second guess what their coaches will do without having any accountability themselves. Indeed, injuries accumulated over the season may have determined which teams had enough playable talent to make it to a victorious end.  And to our credit, we fans really want our most skilled players back on the field in top form.  So we can make it to the next Super Bowl, or at least be entertained on the Big Screen the next weekend.