Stop by the house this evening and it will all be there: the TV, the packed sofa, a Visigoth spread of beer and bread. We’ll trash-talk and cheer as little trails of Velveeta run down our chins.
David CookBut tonight, there’ll be this, too: my growing sense that NFL football is bad for the soul.
I’m not writing this as a guilt trip, or to stir the pot, whatever that means. (“You have become a white Al Sharpton. Shame on you!” one local Christian leader said to me after Friday’s column on race and the NFL.)
I’m trying to be honest, trying to listen closely to that still, small voice inside that whispers — Dude, what are you really watching? Steve Almond puts it best in “Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto,” which is the finest examination of NFL culture I’ve read.
“The point of this book isn’t to (expletive) on your happiness. Let’s make it larger than that. Let’s make it an honest conversation between ourselves, and within ourselves, about why we come to football, about why we need a beautiful savage game to feel fully alive, to feel united, and to love the people we love.”
I’ll start.
One Sunday this season, we were watching a game when Really Big Linebacker knocked the stew out of Mr. Quarterback. Knocked him cold.
Normally, my reflex would have been to cheer. But next to me was my son, who’d not long before suffered his own concussion, which is terrible and frightening and made me want to wrap his sweet, precious brain in 50 pounds of forever bubble wrap.
Looking at the dazed, concussed quarterback on TV, I thought: That is somebody else’s son. That, too, is a magnificent, beautiful, fearfully-created brain.
How can I cheer for such violence?
How can I cheer for a game that knowingly and willingly causes brain damage?
(Or a game that objectifies women? And promotes a distorted, get-tough masculinity? And buries any sensitivity and empathy for gay and lesbian Americans?)
And why the devil isn’t anybody talking about this?
“Can you recall a single public figure who has ever condemned football?” Almond asks. “A major politician? A religious leader? A celebrity of any kind?”
Not long ago, Almond’s mom developed dementia. He saw her suffering, and soon, he couldn’t stomach or square his own desire for football, which also causes brain damage and disease.
So he went cold turkey. No more fantasy teams. No more watching. No more sports pages. No more NFL, college, nothing.
He realized two things: Football was everywhere. And he was addicted to it.
“I’m still Jonesing for it,” he said.
Football is our national narrative, the Big Table around which we all gather. NFL culture gives us meaning, identity and community, which, coincidentally, are the same properties of religion. Have we made the NFL an American idol?
“It’s filling this huge yawning void for Americans to feel deeply and have a satisfying narrative experience,” Almond said.
Almond isn’t trying to boo-hoo football away from us. Rather, he wants to speak to fans about our responsibility to see the NFL for all it is, not just how it chameleon-presents itself. Football isn’t going anywhere, so let’s make it as safe, whole and noble as we can.
He ends his book with a list of ideas.
“Revoke the NFL’s nonprofit status.”
“Institute a parental discretion warning before football games. Films are rated based, in part, on acts of simulated violence. Football games contain hundreds of acts of real violence, the most extreme replayed ad nauseum.”
“Create a helmet that records every sub-concussive hit.”
“Include graduation rates in a college team’s national ranking.”
“Prohibit tackle football for high schoolers younger than sixteen.”
“Require a 3.0 GPA to play varsity football.”
“Remember who’s in charge.”
It shouldn’t be the advertisers. Or the team owners. Or the NFL, which hopes to reach annual revenues of $25 billion.
It should be compassionate and clear-headed fans who love football, for all the right reasons.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.