Is it time to question the morality of football?

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin (3) receives the hit that would nearly kill him on Jan. 2 in Cincinnati. Associated Press/Photo by Joshua A. Bickel

For many Americans, football is a silver thread that runs through the fabric of our lives. I gave up playing football after middle school in favor of the band, but even that tells you I could not leave football behind. I marched in every halftime show of every game in high school. When I went off to the University of Georgia, I learned just how all-consuming college football can be—especially for students at Southeastern Conference schools.

My experience is hardly unique, or even rare. Football has more participants at the high school and college level than any other sport. It has more spectators than any other sport. It generates more revenue than any other sport. It has more television viewers than any other sport. More than 208 million Americans, two-thirds of the country, watched the last Super Bowl. Landing an NFL franchise is a sign that a city has come of age. Local governments pay billions in tax abatements and stadium construction costs to get and keep teams.

The NFL is an $18 billion a year enterprise. Many analysts believe it will go to $25 billion in the next few years, due to organic growth, TV and streaming deals, and the embrace of online gambling. The Dallas Cowboys is the most valuable sports franchise in the world. To buy it would set you back $5.7 billion.

Americans know there’s danger in football. We’ve always known that. It’s even part of the appeal. Hemingway once said that bullfighting was the only true sport. All others were mere games. Many Americans would reject his conclusion while affirming his premise. What makes football so exciting is the danger. Yes, people get hurt, sometimes grievously so, but there is risk in all human activities. No pain, no gain. No guts, no glory.

So we accept the occasional hurt that football leaves behind. Broken arms and legs will heal. The soreness that follows the first day in pads? It will fade. Your body will get used to being battered. You will stop thinking about it.

And so we do—until something happens like what happened to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin on Jan. 2.

Many Americans were still enjoying the New Year’s holiday. This Monday Night Football game, between the Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals, had playoff implications. It was being watched by nearly 24 million Americans—the most to watch a Monday Night Football game since ESPN took over the broadcasts. In the first quarter, Hamlin took a blow to the chest, and his heart stopped beating. The game was suspended and ultimately canceled—the first such cancellation in NFL history.

The event captured the attention of the nation. One ESPN commentator, while the network was still covering the event live, led the nation in prayer. Before the accident, Hamlin had set up a GoFundMe page to raise $2,500 to buy toys for children in Hamlin’s hometown of McKees Rocks, Pa. Less than a week later, the site had collected more than $8.6 million from a quarter of a million donors.

The good news is that Hamlin is getting better. Indeed, he is talking and—without diminishing the seriousness of his injuries or the long healing process ahead—he appears to be on the road to recovery, though how full and complete the recovery will be is still not known.

We’ve Been Here Before

Howard Bryant, a journalist and long-time critic of the game, says “football is the only sport with a 100 percent injury rate.” He calls it a “death sport” that can’t be fixed with penalties and fines. His conclusion: “The problem with football is … football.”

Defenders of football say all sports involve injury, even non-contact sports such as running, swimming, and ballet. Injuries are part of the life of the athlete, especially world-class athletes who push their bodies to the limits of performance.

But the Damar Hamlin incident makes that argument sound weak, especially in light of a long line of catastrophic events associated with the game. The NFL has even had a death on the field. In 1971, 28-year-old Chuck Hughes, a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, collapsed on the field a minute before the end of a game against the Chicago Bears. Attempts to resuscitate him failed, and he was pronounced dead an hour later at a nearby hospital.

Nick Buoniconti as a linebacker for the Miami Dolphins in 1972 Associated Press photo

Many football fans know the story of Hall of Famer Nick Buoniconti. Buoniconti’s son Marc, whom many thought had the talent to follow his father’s path into the NFL, was paralyzed by a football injury while playing college football for The Citadel. The elder Buoniconti had a long and successful post-football career but said he struggled with neurological issues later in life. He announced in 2017 that he would donate his brain to the research of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and in 2018 joined other former NFL stars to support Flag Football Under 14, which advocates for no tackle football for children under that age.

Buoniconti is just one of many public figures who have focused attention on football and CTE, a condition related to, and probably caused by, repeated brain trauma. The effects can range from debilitating to deadly. Symptoms associated with CTE include depression, mood swings, headaches, erratic behavior, suicidal ideation, and death by suicide.

So far, the only way to diagnose CTE accurately is to examine the brain of a deceased person who had it. A growing number of former players have followed Buoniconti’s example and have donated their brains to CTE research. A 2017 study of the brains of deceased football players found evidence of CTE in 99 percent of the brains of former NFL players who had donated to the study. This study confirmed what many who play and watch the game already knew. In fact, even before this study was released, players began opting out of the game. In 2015, Chris Borland, a linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers, quit football after talking with concussion researchers. Borland was no bench-sitter. He was considered a rising star in the league. His four-year deal was worth $3 million.

Luke Kuechly was a superstar linebacker for the Carolina Panthers when he abruptly announced his retirement from the game at age 28.The surprise announcement, in January of 2020, stunned the football world because Kuechly was still at the top of his game. He made the Pro Bowl his final season in the league, and was named to the All-Decade team of the 2010s. Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper called him a “once in a generation” player. Despite his short career, most football commentators say he’s a lock for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Luke Kuechly (59) lines up against the Oakland Raiders on Dec. 23, 2012. Associated Press/Photo by Mike McCarn

In an emotional video Kuechly posted on social media to announce his retirement, he said, “I still want to play, but I don't think it's the right decision. I thought about it for a long time. Now is an opportunity to step away with what's going on here.” Kuechly did not explain “what’s going on here,” and he never specifically mentioned the possibility of CTE or cognitive impairment. But he missed seven games in his career because of concussions.

It is almost too easy to find more tragic stories. Dave Duerson was a four-time Pro Bowler and won Super Bowls with two different teams. He died in 2011 at age 50 of a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest. Why the chest and not the head? A note he left behind requested that his brain be sent to the Boston University School of Medicine for research on CTE. Neurologists there confirmed that Duerson had CTE as a result of concussions during his playing career. His story was one of many featured in the 2015 movie Concussion.

Junior Seau, another “once in a generation” player, also died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest in 2012, just a year after Duerson’s death by suicide. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined Seau’s brain and found definitive signs of CTE. The NIH report on Seau said his brain showed signs of “repetitive head injuries.”

Perhaps the most notorious story is that of New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez (a story told by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative reporting team and by a Netflix docuseries, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez.) Authorities accused Hernandez of three murders and convicted him of one of them. He committed suicide in prison. An autopsy revealed he, too, had signs of CTE as a result of concussions during his football playing days.

Weighing Risks and Rewards

It is possible to make a risk-reward argument at the professional football level. Yes, the likelihood of injury is great, perhaps even 100 percent, but so are the rewards. These are grown men who make princely sums to take the risks they take.

Junior Seau announces his retirement from the NFL on Aug. 14, 2006, in San Diego. Associated Press/Photo by Sandy Huffaker

This argument has some merit but is hardly bulletproof. For one thing, most rookies entering the league do not make princely sums. The average NFL salary may be around $2.7 million, but that number is dramatically skewed by the massive deals of a few superstars. The rookie minimum is about $700,000 per year, but as many as half of all pro football players end up on practice squads or in developmental leagues where the pay is less than $100,000 a year. These are not pauper’s wages, but neither are they the kinds of packages that set up a player for life. Indeed, a 2015 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research reported by NBC Sports found that roughly 16 percent of retired football players end up bankrupt within 12 years of stepping off the field for the last time.

And one of the oldest cliches of the game is this: NFL means “Not For Long.” NFL careers are short. The NFL Players Association says the average career is 3.3 years. That means that the average player is not in the league long enough to qualify for the NFL’s pension plan, which requires four years of play. The bottom line: The vast majority of NFL players accumulate no real wealth for the risk they incur during their playing years.

Still, there is a case to be made that adults can make adult decisions—assuming, of course, they know the risks.

However, there is growing evidence that institutions such as the NFL and the culture of big college football programs have not been transparent regarding these risks. In 2013, more than 4,500 former players won $765 million from the league over concussion-related ailments. The athletes accused the NFL of concealing the dangers of concussions and “rushing injured players back onto the field while glorifying and profiting from the kind of bone-jarring hits that made for spectacular highlight-reel coverage.”

The former players and their families said their football-related ailments included dementia, depression, Alzheimer’s, mood swings, violent behavior, and suicide. The NFL at first denied any wrongdoing, but NFL commissioner Roger Goodell could defend the indefensible for only so long. He ultimately instructed the NFL’s lawyers to “do the right thing for the game and the men who played it.”

Is Youth Football Child Abuse?

Defending football becomes even more problematic at the college and high school level. The same 2017 study that found CTE in 99 percent of pro football players found it in 91 percent of college players and 21 percent of high school players. Almost none of these players will ever receive any substantial financial rewards for the damage their bodies and brains receive.

Such statistics are too much for the forensic pathologist who first identified CTE.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, left, and actor Will Smith pose together at an event for the film Concussion on Dec. 14, 2015, in New York, N.Y. Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/Associated Press

Bennet Omalu was portrayed by actor Will Smith in Concussion, the movie mentioned above. That movie tells the story of how the Nigerian-born physician was among the first to discover and publish research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy while working at the Allegheny County coroner’s office in Pittsburgh.

Movie critics didn’t love the movie. Some said it was too soft on the NFL. Emails uncovered by The New York Times, and subsequent reporting by Deadspin, suggest pressure from the NFL caused the studio to remove “unflattering moments for the NFL” and take “most of the bite” out of the movie. Director Peter Landesman admitted to the changes, saying they were made to “to reduce the chance that the league could attack the filmmakers for taking too much creative license.”

But the hero of the movie, Bennet Omalu, remains unbowed. He says that letting children play football is child abuse. “Someday there will be a district attorney who will prosecute for child abuse, and it will succeed,” Omalu told told the San Jose Mercury News. “It is the definition of child abuse.”

If this hypothetical district attorney needs an Exhibit A in her case, she might look no further than a 2013 review of data from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. The data show that 243 high school and college football deaths were recorded between July 1990 and June 2010.

The statistics reveal that head trauma is just one of many problems with football. Of the 243 deaths, 100 of them resulted from an underlying heart condition. Just 62 were due to a brain injury, typically a subdural hematoma. Heat related effects caused 38 deaths. The findings were published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

One of Bennet Omalu’s allies is sports safety activist Kim Archie.

In 2016 she was one of the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Pop Warner football and USA Football. Her son played Pop Warner football from 1997 until 2004. Archie said he began to show erratic behavior when he reached adulthood, and he died in a motorcycle accident in 2014. An autopsy revealed he had CTE.

She found other mothers with similar stories. Jo Cornell’s son Tyler played football from age 8 until 17. He was a lineman and took thousands of hits to the head in practices and games. As a young adult, he suffered from anxiety and depression severe enough to require hospitalization. At age 25, Tyler Cornell died by suicide. His mother sent his brain to Boston University. Researchers there confirmed that Tyler suffered from CTE.

The lawsuit brought by Archie was ultimately dismissed in 2019, but not before a U.S. District Court judge in California ruled that most of the claims in the case could move forward to trial. Those claims included negligence, fraud, fraudulent concealment, and negligent misrepresentation. According to the San Diego Times-Union, “no case against Pop Warner has advanced this far in court.” The Times-Union also reported that this was not the first lawsuit against Pop Warner Little Scholars, the organization’s legal name. “Other plaintiffs who sued PWLS in recent years eventually settled for undisclosed payouts.”

The parents have vowed to fight on.

We Are What We Love

Defenders of football are quick to point out the virtues of the sport. It requires physical fitness, strength, leadership, and teamwork. It also requires study and focus and intelligence. As novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace wrote (in a book review of tennis star Tracy Austin’s memoir), “Anyone who buys the idea that great athletes are dim should have a close look at an NFL playbook.”

Medical personnel take an injured player off the field during a high school championship game in Cookeville, Tenn., on Dec. 3, 2016. Associated Press/Photo by Mark Humphrey

All of these arguments are true: Football produces many measurable benefits. The question we should be asking, though, is whether the ends justify the means? Especially when virtually every benefit football provides can be provided by sports that do not kill, maim, or otherwise injure our children.

When Chris Borland quit the NFL in 2015, the reaction of most commentators was not, “He’s crazy.” Rather, it was, “Well, that makes sense.”

Sports columnist Bill Barnwell, now with ESPN was a staff writer for Grantland when he wrote:

The reaction to Borland’s decision, thankfully, was mostly one of respect and support. Outside of the usual few idiots, Borland was praised for standing up for himself and making a choice to protect himself and his future, for recognizing the risks of playing professional football and making a logical decision to do something else with his life.

But Barnwell went on to name the inconvenient truth that few people in the game are willing to face:

But that’s the contradiction. Nobody doubts that Borland is making the smart decision, and yet we’re also not simultaneously encouraging every other NFL player to follow his lead. If the logic makes sense for Borland (and I think it does), why wouldn’t it make sense for … anybody else? How inherently wrong is football that a guy who could have made millions of dollars over the course of his career is throwing that away and we all agree it’s the right idea? And if it’s that wrong, why are any of us watching?

Why indeed? Habit? The thrill? The distressing failure of we humans to avert our eyes when a train wreck is before us? Money and power are certainly motivations for some. Tribalism plays a role. Go to New York City on any given Saturday, and you can find a bar for most of the major college teams. Expatriate Southerners know where to find the Georgia bar, the Alabama bar, or the Clemson bar. They wear their school colors and root for their alma mater. The rock band Steely Dan even wrote a song about the phenomenon, “Deacon Blues,” which includes the lines: “Sharing the things we know and love with those of our kind.”

Of course, these lyrics are dripping with irony. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are too clever to say directly that we Americans are looking for love in all the wrong places, as a country song might (and did). But that’s clearly what they are saying here. Indeed, how we define love, and how we show love, and what we choose to love—well, these are key questions in this conversation.

Chris Borland admits that he still loves the game. It just—for him—isn’t worth the risk. As Bill Barnwell wrote, “Think about what that says: Football is so inherently dangerous, so obviously flawed, that the incentive of living a childhood dream after a lifetime of training and for millions of dollars isn’t strong enough to continue.”