One of the most disturbing moments in “Jaws,” at least for me, is the scene where the mayor of Amity island, whom we know is in possession of strong evidence that a Great White shark is cruising the waters of his town’s beaches looking for snacks, persuades an elderly couple to take their grandchildren into the surf to show everyone else on the beach that the water is safe. The scene leapt immediately to mind yesterday morning, when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in a Super Bowl Sunday interview on “Face the Nation,” emphatically told CBS’s Bob Shieffer that unlike President Obama, he would unhesitatingly allow his son to play football. I’m sure he would, too. After all, Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) sent his own kids into the Amity surf.
Like his role model, Mayor Vaughn, Goodell has a terrible problem, as well as a conflict of interest. He is paid to do what is in the best interests of the National Football League, and admitting that the game the league plays and the way it play it kills or mains a significant number of its players would be seen by his employers as a breach of duty. So despite mounting evidence that every single NFL player is putting his brain, health, and life at grave risk by allowing the relentless head trauma that is an unavoidable part of the game, Goodell feels he must claim otherwise, which, assuming he is basically a good man (I was never sure about Larry Vaughn), means he must convince himself that what he says is true. This led Goodell to make a series of statements yesterday that will haunt him some day as much as Mayor Vaughn’s infamous interview quote on the day the little Kintner boy (above) became chum: “I’m pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it’s a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means friendship.”
First, he told Shieffer: “I couldn’t be more optimistic about it because the game of football has always evolved. Through the years, through the decades, we’ve made changes to our game, to make it safer, to make it more exciting, to make it a better game for the players, for the fans, and we have done that in a very calculated fashion.” This was lawyer-speak, for the NFL is being sued by the families of thousands of ex-players alleging that this is exactly what the NFL has not done. Goodell knows that if he makes the game safe enough to remove the Great White, it will necessarily be less exciting, because it is the bone-crushing violence that the fans crave.
In another interview on Sunday with ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning” Goodell said he believes the NFL has “made the necessary changes to make the game safer.” This statement is deceitful: note that he didn’t say “safe,” or “safe enough.” Mayor Vaughn ordered the sheriff of Amity to have shark spotters on the beach and in boats; they had helicopters scanning the water…it was safer, all right. But not safe enough to send the kids into the water.
Also yesterday, Goodell told ESPN Radio,”Any sport has a risk of injury.” The movie didn’t show us Larry Vaughn reminding a Boston’s WBZ that there will always be unfortunate accidents and every beach has them, but Goodell’s ridiculous statement was the rough equivalent.
On a Super Sunday that featured the weirdest game yet, what may ultimately remembered with as much disgust as the 1994 scene on Capitol Hill, when every tobacco CEO raised his hand to swear nicotine wasn’t addictive, will be the NFL Commissioner’s assertion that his game was so safe, he’d send his son out to play it. Knowing what we know now, and there will be more frightening evidence to come, that statement is either a lie (Goodell doesn’t have a son, after all) or desperate self-delusion. Today, February 3, 2013, allowing one’s children to play tackle football is no more responsible than sending them into the Amity surf to swim with Jaws.
And cheering on NFL players while they relentlessly reduce their brains to mush [see also here] is not much better.
I’ll never watch an NFL game again.
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Sources: ESPN,Pro Football Talk, CBS News 1, CBS News 2, ABC News
Graphic: Hudson Lee
Ethics Alarms 
If this PET scan technique lets them see the damage caused by the concussions, it may be able to predict the extent of the detrimental symptoms the person will encounter later in life. First they need to study more people, both suffering symptoms to various degrees and asymptomatic. The next step would be to test current players, college player, and high school players. The results of THOSE tests could really result in some changes to the current sports culture. What if you can already see damage in high school football, soccer, and other contact sports athletes?
One thing’s certain: Allowing children below adolescent age to play tackle football- at a time when their bones are still soft- carries a definite risk. When fully grown men, beefed up to gargantuan size by means that “sometimes” involve illegal methods are led to use their heads as semi-lethal weapons on the field against others of like training, bad things are bound to happen over time.
I recall how during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt (11 decades ago) he was under pressure from citizen’s groups to ban college football altogether after six athletes had died during a season. This spurred the development of the protective equipment we see today. But the player of those days rarely faced a season of more than ten games. The NFL player of today, when one includes the pre-season frays, faces twice as many… and against opponents who make the players of that early time look like pygmies in comparison.
Football is always going to be a rough sport. Nor is it going to go away, as it is deeply imbedded in our sports culture. But this concept of using the head as a weapon has to stop. Maybe if the players were forced to use the thick woolen jerseys and leather helmets of their predecessors, they’d be less inclined to try to murder each other on “any given Sunday”.
Penn State’s Joe Paterno supposedly suggested something similar- just remove the facemasks from the helmets. The skull stays protected from falls and blindside hits, but you can no longer spear head-first and expect to come out if it feeling OK. A bit oversimple, perhaps, but it has the ring of an elegant solution about it.
We are now on our way to banning football. Lawyers will get rich from litigation, politicians will posture and boys will suffer. That suffering won’t be as visible as the suffering of the relatively few who suffer head injuries from playing football but it will be no less real. What is ethical about removing all risk from life? It is insanely dangerous to let children climb trees but it is also cruel to deny them the chance to experience that joy.
If boxing wasn’t banned, football won’t be. But it will not be able to be played as it is, and that will mean, quite possibly, that the sport will decline. The head injuries are not only to a small minority of players, but a high proportion of them. You’re paying people to make them hurt themselves, and when it is clear how badly and how many, the ethical imperatives will stop many, not all, but enough, spectators and former fans from watching athletes maim themselves for entertainment. And high school and college kids? The liability suits will take care of them—and thank God for that.
I come at this from a different perspective. I work in the blue collar trades. It is not as dramatic, highly paid or esteemed by the general public but millions of Americans ruin their bodies for money every day. Look at a 55 year old roofer or carpet layer or cleaning lady. Chronic pain ruined backs, knees and shoulders are commonplace. But like a professional athlete their careers are over if these injuries keep them from work and they don’t have the best medical care, high salaries or lavish pensions. Injury is tragic but it is a part of life and I am not sure how you can get around it.
I take your critique seriously but the majority of the outrage seems feigned to me. I genuinely don’t get it. This controversy may or may not make the game safer but it will certainly make lawyers rich. How many frivolous suits will it take to bankrupt a few community athletic associations and scare the rest into dropping the sport?
I’m sure you see the difference between coal mining, construction work and other dangerous trades where the danger is an integral part of the job but has nothing to do with the purpose of the task, and a game with rules that can be changed at will where the source of the danger is a voyeur’s pleasure. The comparison with gladiatorial combat, which our culture, at least officially, has always looked upon as perverted and barbaric, is increasingly apt the more we know, as spectators, what we are cheering for. Any employer in a dangerous trade will be killed in liability suits it it doesn’t take reasonable measures to minimize the dangers. When the trade is a game, reasonable measures will mean making changes in the game that make it less entertaining to the audience that likes hearing heads crunch. Well, that group will shrink once they know what they are watching, and the rest are unethical for continuing to watch.