Thursday, June 14, 2012

Mr. Goodell, Even NFL Chickens Always Come Home To Roost

The hits just keep coming...



In an article by Pro Football Talk Thursday, Terry Bradshaw was quoted as saying he doesn't think NFL truly cares about former players. This is hardly the first time that the NFL has been accused of such things, as "more than 80 concussion-related suits have been filed against the NFL by more than 2,000 former players." - http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/story/2012-06-06/nfl-concussion-lawsuit/55433744/1

This blog has touched quite a bit on the Saints Bountygate scandal and the involvement of the players, coaches and administration. This blog also blatantly accused Roger Goodell and the NFL last season of hypocrisy. So it's no wonder that former players like Bradshaw have said the things they have. The NFL has a terrible track record for taking care of its former, and in some cases current, players.

I'm not going to dwell to much on this because PFT's article itself is so well written. But I did want to briefly speak on something else Bradshaw said that was first said by former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner.

“If I had a son today...I would not let him play football,” Terry Bradshaw told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show." Bradshaw also went so far as to say that football will "phase" out over the next decade.

The notion that football could be gone within the next years isn't what he's saying here, though I have heard certain detractors suggest that very thing. But he is saying that the game we know and love today may be vastly different.

I'm a firm believer in the notion of "they know what they signed up for." A woman who poses nude for a living doesn't have the right to complain when men (and sometimes other women) look at her only as a sex symbol. You don't want to objectified? Keep your clothes on. Similarly, if a man doesn't want to be a piece of meat in another since, keep studying and be a doctor. The point is that neither went into either situation blindly.

NFL players play the game because they want to and know of all the horror stories of retired players long before their first professional down. Stories of those who have to suck their dinner through a straw at age 50 or, worse yet, are already dead at that age. So I'm afraid I can't exactly empathize when I hear the various complaints.

As a form of proof to this sentiment, when Bradshaw was asked if he'd do it all again knowing what he knows, he said he'd "absolutely" do so. For the rest of Bradshaw's comments and the entirety of the article, follow this link: http://t.co/oDA0Yn2J

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