I was sitting with a friend of mine last night at my high school alma mater's football game (Bay High School in Bay Village, Ohio) where his son is a sophomore offensive lineman who gets some varsity playing time at guard and tackle. He had his daughter sitting in his lap and she couldn't quite understand the violent nature of the sport. Her dad said something to the effect of "football is just a very rough sport".
And in that short exchange, my friend and his daughter pretty much summed up the nature of football: it is a violent sport filled with collisions. Sometimes those collisions are so violent that it causes permanent injury, careers to end suddenly and a lifetime of pain that just doesn't go away.
The comments of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu this week regarding the fines levied against teammate Hines Ward over "unnecessary roughness" spoke volumes and elicited a typically buttoned down response from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The comments were a clarion call coming from the relatively soft-spoken Polamalu, who looks like he just just stepped of the beach from a day of surfing.
The guys who play in the NFL have to know that...and most do. They accept the fact that their next hit could very well be their last. And they accept that after year upon year of repeated violent contact. And they still suit up and go in...they aren't willing to be pussies about the situation.
Goodell doesn't seem to understand this concept. Now, with all these fines being levied against NFL players for "excessive contact"...or whatever the new buzz words are...you'd think that players would tone it down to avoid further financial "hardship", right? Maybe some would. But that is not the nature of the game.
And the fines are coming on relatively routine plays, many of which cause no injury to any of the players involved. It's the place from where Polamalu's concern rises.
Maybe the commish is on a money grab. Maybe Good Ol' Rog is losing at the track and needs to make good on covering his sloppy betting habits.
But whatever it is, the entire matter of fining players for just playing the game is just plain stupid.
Somewhere, Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert is getting a chuckle out of this...but he still knows that quarterbacks should wear dresses. Most players in the NFL share Lambert's sentiment. It's too bad that sentiment disconnects before it reaches the commissioner's office.
