Opinion: Bring Death Back To Football

Football exists in its most pure form when a man walks in a stadium not knowing if he’ll walk out, maybe because he is paralyzed or maybe because he is, better yet, dead. That’s football. And sadly, that integral aspect has been legislated out of the game.  

The so-called “football players” of today’s watered-down version of the NFL seem a little bit too comfortable with their mortality. That’s not football. Football is gladiatorial combat with a polyurethane ball. It’s not “concussion protocols” and “helmets.” The bottom line is that we need to bring death back to the game.

Think about the viewership it would bring. Yes, everyone already watches the game. But imagine what it would be like tuning in knowing death may be on the horizon. You thought a 35-34 game with ten seconds left, team trailing with the ball at the opponent’s 25-yard line was exhilarating? Well, think about the potential thrill of knowing the guy catching the game-winning touchdown might be decapitated. 

This game wasn’t invented so men can say “hut, hut” and flip a little ball around while wrestling each other to the ground. That’s not what the founders of football had in mind. The more we move away from the carnage inherent to this sport, the more distress we cause to the 100-year-old mangled corpses of the men who died bringing this game to us.

I could say they’d be rolling over in their grave, but they rolled over for no one.