Why? Because I love the game of football. And I love watching it on its grandest stages. As far as the college game is concerned, it doesn't get any bigger than tonight: two storied programs from very different parts of the country clashing on center stage. I don't miss big games. Never have. Probably never will.
But I will be viewing my TV through vastly different viewing goggles than even two years ago -- and this has nothing to do with the brew, or two, I might consume while nestled in my couch.
It's all about how I view the game of football.
Last night, I watched the documentary "Head Games," directed and produced by award-winner Steve James (Hoop Dreams, anyone?). The 90-minute film does an excellent job of delving into the world of violent sports -- football and hockey, primarily; the science behind head injuries; the studies, past and present, that are discovering more and more about the potentially devastating effects of head injuries; and the people affected by head injuries but also conflicted about them.
For instance, knowing the damage that football hits to the head can cause, would you let your son play the sport?
I don't have children and don't expect to for a long time -- when more research would undoubtedly help any decision -- but today, right now, my answer would be unequivocally no.
There are so many things to love about football: The drama of a close game in the fourth quarter; the creativity and ingenuity behind the "play call," which fans then get to criticize or laud after each game; the juke; the diving catch; the trick play; I could go on and on.
One thing I no longer love is the "big hit," or as announcers might rave, "The BONE-JARRING HIT!"
Anytime I see a safety lay out a defenseless receiver, I cringe. Whenever a quarterback gets pummeled by a blitzing linebacker, I wince. Call me weak if you want -- and often times that player will bounce back up -- but what you don't see is the long-term damage that hit might have caused.
Did you know that:
- A 2009 University of Michigan study found that retired NFL players ages 30-49 were 19 times more likely than members of the general population to be diagnosed with Dementia.
- Despite new rules in the NFL and at other levels of the sport, hundreds of concussions still go unreported and it's estimated that 50 percent of football players sustain concussions.
- According to research done by Boston University, 50 former football players had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), "a degenerative brain disorder linked to memory loss, depression and dementia" that can't be detected until a brain is examined after death.
CTE has been linked to the suicides of former "tough guys" we revered on the gridiron -- among them Andre Waters, Mike Webster, and University of Pennsylvania football player Owen Thomas, who committed suicide at age 21.
More research is being done and there is nothing definitive, but the conclusions medical experts at Boston University have come to include this:
CTE can result not from the huge hits fans often celebrate when they see on TV, but from the cumulative effect of hundreds of hits taken during practices and games.
According to Robert C. Cantu, a co-director of BU's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and a senior adviser to the NFL on concussions, who is featured in the film:
"We believe that this is a dose-related phenomenon -- not just to concussions but total brain trauma. So clearly there's a relation to how many hits you've taken, and that does correlate with how long you played."
Cantu added that "collision sports should not be played under the age of 14 ... in particular, take hits to the head out of it."
It's worth noting that this is not an issue brought to the spotlight by doctors eager for publicity. "Head Games" is based on the book "Head Games," written by former Ivy League football star and WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski, who realized during his time taking punishing hits to the head in the ring that he was literally losing his mind.
During one wrestling match he references in the film, Nowinski completely forgot the script and where he was. That scared him into giving up the sport. And soon after, the Harvard graduate began digging deeper into the issue of concussions and contact sports.
Football fans, like I was, are desensitized to such things. They'd rather celebrate a great hit or chalk off a woozy player being helped off the field as "a part of the game." Others will say that injuries happen in all sports, or that you can sustain a head injury just as easily riding a bike (a flat-out silly argument).
NBC sportscaster Bob Costas, who is part of the NBC Sunday Night Football broadcast team, puts the sport in the proper perspective:
"In most other sports, the chance of injury is incidental. In football, the chance of injury and long-term serious effects is fundamental. And no honest person can watch this sport and not acknowledge that."
For me, being aware of just how dangerous and vicious football is has made me less of a fan. I'd rather watch basketball and baseball.
Some like to say, "I didn't make the choice to play football. They did." Many people, when watching, like to dehumanize the helmeted figures on the field. I guess it makes it a lot easier to watch the butting of heads when you're not thinking of the person's head inside that strapped mask.
But I can't do that. At least not any longer. I know I was far from the only person that cringed when Robert Griffin III went down for the last time yesterday during the Redskins' playoff loss to the Seahawks, his knee seemingly buckling beneath him.
Where's the cringing when offensive linemen butt heads with their counterparts each play?
There is none, obviously, because we're not seeing the potential damage being done.
By the time retired players are struggling to remember the months of the year -- there's a depressing scene in the film when a former player can't name them sequentially -- we're celebrating the newest batch of battlefield entertainers, the struggling ones relegated to bar stool conversations (or completely forgotten).
Am I completely shunning football?
No way. I still love the game. There aren't many things better than a Michigan game day at the Big House or a perfectly executed flea flicker.
But it's dropped down my list of favorite sports, and there are aspects of it that I won't allow myself to celebrate like I used to. I won't allow myself to clap for the battering of human lives, whether on the football field or elsewhere.
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