Football is a dangerous game. It’s always been a dangerous game. Over the past century, the game has evolved with better and more efficient equipment. Men (and boys) who play football are bigger and faster than even players of 20 years ago.
I only played three years of high school football. I played in an era where a helmet-to-helmet tackle wasn’t just allowed, it was rewarded and encouraged. I know I was concussed at least twice, once when I staggered toward the sideline and was told to get back in the game. I was never told to stop hitting with my helmet. I wasn’t alone. A lot of my teammates were concussed. We’d laugh about it after the game. Multiply that by 10,000 boys being concussed every Friday night. Some suffered grade 3 concussions – which might have only manifested damage in later adulthood.
Not too long ago, NFL players were told to “get back in the game” after being concussed – or players would refuse to acknowledge that they were “seeing double.”
Part of it was pride. Most men (and high school boys) don’t want to leave the game just because t they took a hit that “rattled the brain.” Part of it, at least for NFL players, was the risk that if they sit after a hard hit to the head, they might never get back in, and then they are out of a job.
Times, fortunately, changed for NFL players. The health of players is now front and center. Helmet-to-helmet tackles are banned at all levels. In the NFL – if there is a suspicion that a blow to the head has caused a concussion, the player is evaluated and if concussed, that player is removed from the game and must clear a protocol to return to play again.
Junior Seau played 19 seasons in the NFL and made over 1,800 tackles, many of which were violent. Seau was praised for putting a “beating” on other players. Unfortunately for Seau, his brain was also taking a beating. After he retired, he suffered from depression and memory loss. He must have felt that there was something very wrong with his brain because at the age of 43, he shot himself in the heart. He didn’t leave a note like fellow NFL player Dave Duerson, who requested that his brain be examined for brain trauma.
Seau’s brain was examined, and it showed extensive brain trauma (CTE). Last Thursday, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa ran for a first down and took a hard tackle that pushed his head sideways, and subsequently, his helmet bounced off the grass. He was clearly concussed. Tagovailoa has suffered several concussions in his career. I’ve seen them replayed. When I saw the Thursday night replay of this hit I mentally noted that if doctors don’t tell Tagovailoa to retire his family should. His next concussion might be his last moment on earth, but at the very least any more blows to his brain and Tagovailoa might suffer the fate of hundreds of past NFL players who by age 50 cannot remember the names of their children or the day of the week. That fate isn’t worth the millions he might get paid to play another season.
Related: The Fallout Begins From Tagovailoa Brain Injury: Doctor Who Cleared Him Fired, Concussion Protocols to Be Changed
Terrifying Brain Injury Causes Outrage in the NFL—Why Was Tua Allowed on the Field?
Rightfully, many retired players were urging him to retire. Unfortunately, pundits had other thoughts. Stupid thoughts. Absurd thoughts, and ridiculous analogies.
On ESPN, Stephen A. Smith and another host I have never heard of named Elle Duncan were discussing Tagovailoa’s latest concussion. What followed was an amazing exchange in which Smith compared his job as a sportscaster (and being away from his children) to NFL players risking brain injury and potentially a life of mood swings, dementia, and early death because men “provide and protect… it comes with it, when you are a man.” I have a different take. As a man, if I am told that one more job-related concussion will give me a 90 percent chance of early memory loss, depression, and forgetting the names of my children, I am quitting that job and finding other work.
As stupid as Smith’s comments were to me, Elle Duncan was able to top that stupidity with easily the dumbest analogy-word-salad ever blathered on national TV. She said:
“As someone who is a woman who has two scars that go from hip to hip because I’ve had two C-sections in an effort to provide for my family and create a family for my family, I understand sacrifice. A Black woman in this country, whose mortality rates are incredibly high, I understand making sacrifices.”
Here is Smith and Duncan (with an insipid look on her face) offering their silly analogies:
During a discussion about Tua Tagovailoa’s concussion, Elle Duncan responded to Stephen A. Smith saying men have a mindset of sacrificing for their families.
“As someone who is a woman who has two scars that go from hip to hip because I’ve had two C-sections in an effort to… pic.twitter.com/il6mNOTbEy
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 13, 2024
Duncan’s comments were a Kamala Harris-level word salad. Comparing herself to men taking life-changing blows to the head is like Biden comparing Beau’s death to dying in combat. It’s next level “what about me-isms.”
