Are You Game for Two More?

It's not that I don't think four pre-season games is too many, I do. But adding another two regular season games to the NFL season will really change the sport.

Sure, they're thinking it will rake in two more weeks of fan purchasing in oh so many forms, but it's not just the player rosters that will have to increase to support the increased losses in battle, it's all the long term injury this will cause. Just how much of the future are they willing to sign away for the present?

Say goodbye the smattering of first string players who are able to last to the final game of the season. The playoffs may become an entirely different beast, with 3rd string quarterbacks throwing to the tight end who's also filling in for the linebacker on defense, etc. And of course and lots of mid-season trading and improvising.

The NY Times rolled out some blunt information about concussions http://www.nytimes.com/info/concussions-in-football/ . Statistics show the incidence of Alzheimers in ex-NFL players is at "a rate of 19 times" the national norm for men aged 30-49.

Me Spectator

I keep thinking I have to convince myself that football is more than football. As if by itself it's not "meaningful" enough. After all, it's just people bashing against each other for territory and exercise, right?

But as soon as I write the sentence I see that sport stands for more than itself, like in the moment of instinct during play, the athlete's body memory/mind blend is off the charts. Now, that's meaningful.

Then I come back to myself, the spectator. Most of us. And what we get from it. It's got to be more than cheers for the home team and excuse for the couch time.

Did most of us play sports as kids, in school or elsewhere? I was on a losing team in high school basketball, but I loved the game & comraderie, and I never once questioned its deepr value, because I felt it.

Favre coming back! It makes ME feel young... or at least a shread of the possibility that youth might last another season.