Very well articulated article about why an NFL running back has walked away from millions of dollars. I'm not sure if he'll come to regret this, but I am sure this will be better for his health in the long run. He's made his money, and it seems like he has a plan.
This articulates a lot of why I have fallen out of love with professional sports. The NBA and NFL especially seem to be nothing but advertisements and highlight reels with little bits of sport thrown in between. Even MLB, and some D1 college matches are turning into over produced glitzy graphics and mind-numbing lowest-common-denominator entertainment. I enjoy the grind and the hard work. I like the stories of how the athletes and coaches prepare, and then seeing the gritty defenders or the chess matches. I like the delay between pitches in baseball, the neutral-zone battles in hockey, and the pre-snap action in football. Slam dunks and end zone celebrations are, for me, the most boring parts of the game. I realized the NFL had gone over the edge when, during the Superbowl, they spent a lot of their slow-motion replay time showing sack celebrations and first down celebrations in HD slow-motion. The broadcast itself was an almost unwatchable display of naked commercialism and pandering. The NBA finals last year were similarly annoying. I think this is why I have found a new love for sports like soccer, hockey, and smaller market college football and baseball. I know that pro sports is a business, no matter if it's MLS or NHL. But it seems that these leagues haven't drifted so far afield that they have forgotten the appeal of sport.
Definitely well articulated. Mendenhall coalesces events in the NFL that may lead to it's eventual downfall. I wouldn't want my son to end up in the NFL now due to both the likelihood of traumatic brain injury (among other life-altering injuries), as well the terrible values extolled by a league driven evermore by data points, rather than whole, human, participants.
Time will tell if that is the case, or if the NFL will adapt. There is no doubt that football is the most violent sport out of the four major sports (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey) and that it likely has the worst track record for post-career health. As for the bit that I've quoted from you, would you say that the NFL is more data-driven than the other major sports? Baseball has an incredibly convoluted sabermetrics system but it seems as though the numbers matter even more in the NFL....as well the terrible values extolled by a league driven evermore by data points, rather than whole, human, participants.