Each year 1.1 million boys, and a few girls, play middle school and high school football .
All risk permanent neurological harm, while few will receive a college sports scholarship and hardly any will earn a dime in the NFL. Many high school football players -- probably the majority, there are no definitive statistics -- take the field in outdated-design "shell" helmets without any concussion-resistant engineering. They do so partly because new-generation helmets cost about $200 each, and many high schools have budget problems.
Okay, so how about we wait until it's confirmed by more than one case before they go waist more than $200 on this shit, huh?
But the main reason large numbers of high school players wear obsolescent helmets is that below the level of the pros and big colleges, coaches, parents and athletic directors have no idea which helmets are best. They look to the top of the sport, the NFL, for guidance -- and receive none.
That and they're spending money on music programs and whatnot. And I'm sure the NFL makes suggestions, it's just that these people aren't about to spend $1000 on a football helmet.
Now a Super Bowl team, the Green Bay Packers, believes its quarterback is safer in a particular helmet type, and won't reveal the information that might reduce brain injury risk throughout the sport.
Again, not sure this helmet actually prevents concussions any better outside of this one incident, BUT THE PEOPLE MUST KNOW SO THEY CAN TEST IT ON THEIR FEEBLE BRAINS.
Like any athletic enterprise, the Packers have reason to keep game plans, training techniques and other such specifics private. But safety information should never be proprietary. Any information that improves sports safety should be declared openly, to all.
Like pickle juice to prevent dehydration like the Eagles used in the '90's to beat the Cowboys in Dallas that one time. I tried it, and I just got dehydrated and threw up. WHAT GIVES?!
Riddell is the NFL's helmet provider; players are free to wear other helmets, so long as they obscure the brand. This is why the white stripe on the back of an NFL helmet may say a team's name; that means the player is not wearing a Riddell, and has covered the Riddell logo.
Whoa, I'm going to do a bit of detective work on my own here right now. Bear with me, Greg(g), I think I might have something. Maybe the helmet isn't a Riddell helmet, so they can't endorse it!
Riddell's advanced Revo Speed model (which my older son wore when playing college football) and the Schutt DNA (which I bought my young son when he played JV) are designed to reduce concussion risk, and data show this works.
Hey, great research! Why don't you go buy one of each of these suckers for all the youth football players you named earlier in this article? It'll only be, what, a little over $200 million out of your pocket?
Is Rodgers wearing a Riddell Revo Speed or a Schutt DNA? The Schutt Ion helmet also has advanced engineering -- is Rodgers wearing an Ion? Is he wearing a Xenith X1, a new helmet brand designed around concussion prevention? Is he wearing the new Rawlings Quantum, which goes on the market soon, and was designed to reduce concussion risks? The public needs to know.
The public needs to know once we've done enough research to prove that these helmets are effective, and then somehow the public needs these helmets to be available for purchase at a lower cost. But that would mean underprivileged showboaters would get these helmets, and we know how Greg(g) hates black people who are drafted in the NFL Draft.
Getting improved helmets onto every football player's head will be no panacea -- other reforms are needed to make the game less dangerous. But getting a concussion-resistant helmet onto every player's head is an important first step.
Too bad a concussion-resistant helmet will probably never exist, unless we're all in our surries playing football. Maybe the best reform would be no helmets at all? There are fewer concussions in rugby than football, because rugby players don't have anything protecting their heads.
Though the NFL has been encouraging players to switch to any of the advanced helmets mentioned above, the NFL does not mandate their use. This is a short-sighted policy TMQ has been objecting to since the Riddell Revolution, the first-generation helmet engineered to reduce concussion risk, went on sale eight years ago.
Surprisingly, I agree here. Especially since the NFL is ponying up for these guys to get insurance.
Regardless, a starting quarterback in Sunday's Super Bowl has found a helmet brand and model that he believes offers superior protection against concussions. Yet he won't say what the helmet is, and the Green Bay Packers won't say either. Rodgers and the Packers should be widely criticized for this. Why won't they tell the country's million high school football players, and the players' parents, what the NFL knows about safety?
So, Easterbrook essentially learns nothing through this. The NFL is conscious of its official suppliers.
Question:Do you think they'll let it slide if Ocho Cinco comes out to Bonnie Bernstein after a game and immediately say, "Yeah, FUCK REEBOK! Assholes make the gayest jerseys ever. Gayer than Lance FUCKIN' Bass!"?
Answer: No. His twitter would disappear. They'd make him change his name back to Johnson and send him to a Protestant Church for every service for six months before even giving him a reinstatement hearing.
TMQ also offers this little gem. I am currently unemployed, but I was curious to see what this:
would do. Well, let's just say Greg(g) really is into that whole Protestant work ethic:
Well, of course it's just the PRINTED VERSION OF TMQ! How else would he do it?
"You think I'm gonna help you pretend you're working? No one helped Wes Welker pretend to be the first to come and last to leave when he got to the Dolphins. You have to earn your keep! And reading my batshit rant about why blacks and Jews are the scum of the Earth is how you will learn your god damn lesson. It's more than appearances. Except for the Jews who don't have hook noses. Fucking masks!"
--Proposed TMQ Ringtone, yelled by Greg(g) and only playable at the highest ringtone volume on your phone.
In other football news, it's hard to think of a more appealing Super Bowl pairing than the Packers, winners of the first two Super Bowls, versus the Steelers, with a league-best six Super Bowl trophies.
Also, Rush and I are both so proud that neither starts a black quarterback. Power to the whites!
The pairing is especially appealing since the Packers were established in 1919 and the Steelers in 1933, yet they have never met in the playoffs.
And they were in completely separate leagues until 1970. So, not that reasonable when for the first 37 years of coexistence they would only be able to play each other in the playoffs or an exhibition, which would usually be against geographically proximal teams.
Greg(g) offers up this stat:
Stat of the Week No. 10 The Packers and Steelers enter the final game on a combined 8-0 postseason streak.
Who would have thought? Somehow, these teams had to win multiple games to get here? That's mindblowing!
Of course, Greg(g) also has a taste for the ironic that would make Dave Barry have an orgy with the family in Family Circus, so here we go:
Disclaimers of the Week: Reader Andrew Smith of Stanley, N.C., purchased a gizmo that emits high-pitched sounds to condition a dog not to bark. The packaging included this disclaimer: "Warning: deaf dogs cannot hear."
I'm not sure who is dumber: the person who thinks this is funny, or the person who needs to read this in order to know not to buy the product. And what's with ragging on them? The law making sure this is printed on something is up there with the law that allows you to carry your little girlie gun that adds that half inch that makes your penis look twice the size, right?
The Packers and Steelers, squaring off in the Super Bowl, are almost entirely home-brewed. Of expected starters Sunday, all of the Packers' starting offensive players were drafted by Green Bay, while seven of the Packers' starting defensive players either were drafted by Green Bay or signed by the team out of college as undrafted free agents. That's 18 of 22 Green Bay starters who have spent their entire pro careers in the Packers' organization. Of the Packers' four starters obtained in free agency, only one, Charles Woodson, received a megabucks contract. No Green Bay starter was obtained in a trade.
Of expected starters for the Steelers, eight of the offensive starters were drafted by the Steelers, with a ninth signed out of college as an undrafted free agent, while on the Pittsburgh defense, eight of the starters were drafted by the Steelers, with a ninth signed out of college as an undrafted free agent. That's 18 of 22 Pittsburgh starters who have spent their entire careers with the Steelers' organization. Of the Steelers' four starters obtained in free agency, none was a big-money acquisition. No Pittsburgh starter was obtained in a trade.
That sound you hear. It sounds like sandpaper rubbing down wood, right? It's actually Greg(g) Easterbrook masturbating to what will happen in this Super Bowl. And he softend whenever Charles Woodson is shown. "Not...gritty...enough...chip...on...shoulder...too...small...I NEED MORE LOTION!"
Is he going to talk about the Hall of Fame? Of course he is.
This weekend, the Hall of Fame selectors will choose the next class to wear the garish yellow jacket at Canton. As with past years, only the on-field performance of players, not their off-field failings (or accomplishments), will be weighed, while no one who's already been admitted will be expelled.
Sounds like a regular Hall of Fame to me.
This must change.
And let me tell you, I have a few black folks who should definitely be kicked out.
Consider: O.J. Simpson, a criminal, is in the Hall of Fame.
Oh, here we go.
Simpson currently is serving a 33-year sentence for armed robbery. In 1997, a California civil jury found him liable for wrongful death in the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. Yet Simpson's bust, jersey and memorabilia are displayed at Canton. "Look, kids, here's the criminal the Pro Football Hall of Fame wants you to admire!"
Again, just a football player. Though I hear they're going to get the knife from the LAPD by induction weekend this year.
Lawrence Taylor is in the Hall of Fame, though in his own 2003 book, "LT: Over the Edge," Taylor said he spent up to "thousands of dollars a day" on cocaine when playing in the NFL, and often broke narcotics laws. Recently, Taylor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of paying an underage girl for sex. To avoid a felony charge, he agreed to become a registered sex offender. "Look kids, here's the child abuser the Pro Football Hall of Fame wants you to admire!"
And to celebrate him, they're going to bring in his favorite $100 bill to do lines with and the bloody sheet from the night in question.
Though Simpson and Taylor are in the Hall of Fame, Jack Kemp -- who was the AFL's all-time leading passer, then went on to a life of highly distinguished public service, including being the Republican Party candidate for vice president in 1996 -- is not. What's the distinction?
Oh, I know! Simpson and Taylor voted for Obama, and Kemp voted for McCain?
Simpson and Taylor did terrible things off the field, Kemp did good things off the field. And the Hall of Fame averts its eyes from off-the-field behavior.
You know, like draft dodging via a bum knee. Not a torn ACL, mind you. Way to go, Republicans!
In bygone days, the sports writer was like an independent publicist for athletes, producing gushing praise while saying nothing about the personal faults of sports stars. That certainly has changed -- today, for example, nearly every sportscaster's reference to Brian Cushing of the Texans includes mention of his drug suspension.
Sports writers have become a lot like you and Jay Mariotti, people who criticize athletes without ever speaking to them and hide behind the cloak of journalism. Get a fucking life.
But the old way of thinking still dominates the Hall of Fame, where the selectors, the former players and owners who trek to the annual induction ceremony, and ESPN and NFL Network, which broadcast the ceremony, prefer to steer clear of the character question.
Why don't you talk to Gooddell about setting up Character Hall of Fame? I know Akili Smith would really like to be in it. Ty Detmer is still a good Mormon, vote him in!
"Many current Hall of Famers had off-field issues that were well-known at the time they were being considered, so to change the selection rules now would skew historic perspective on Hall of Fame selections and create a line of demarcation -- pre off-field considerations and post off-field considerations," Frank Cooney, one of the selectors, told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat last year.
That's a reasonable way to put it. Same parameters for each player to get in. Thought, Greg(g)?
So because the Hall of Fame didn't care about character in the past, it shouldn't care about character now? "That's the way it's always been" is the cheapest excuse in the book.
The cheapest move though? Jumping on someone's reasonable statement to make it your soap box.
When Hall of Fame selectors and Hall of Fame management maintain they should consider only performance on the field, this conveniently excuses them from dealing with personal integrity. Disregarding integrity sets a terrible example. Hall of Fame officials and selectors who have children: Do you tell your children that character does not matter? Of course not. So why do you tell this to other people's children?
Hall of Fame selectors respond: "Actually, we don't say anything to anyone else's children. We just show who were statistically the best players of their time."
This is especially disturbing because the Hall of Fame is a tax-exempt 501c3 nonprofit organization -- officially, an "educational museum." Tax exemptions subsidize the Hall of Fame, which most emphatically does not behave in an "educational" manner.
Telling the history of football through its best players through the years? Sounds pretty educational. This section has to be a ploy to get someone to send him free tickets to the induction ceremony. What a joke.
A Hall of Fame official might say, "OK, suppose we toss out Simpson and Taylor. Do you want us to go through the entire list and expel any player or coach who later committed a serious crime or harmed others?" Yes. That's exactly what you should do. Cooperstown and Springfield should, too. Membership in a sports hall is a privilege, not a right -- a privilege that those who behave dishonorably should lose.
Yeah, like Ty Cobb, who had a penchant for calling Babe Ruth the n word. Oh, we're keeping the whites in?
Roger Goodell said last year, "I believe that it's more than just how you conduct yourself on the field. I believe very firmly that it's how you conduct yourself on and off the field. That's part of your contribution to the game." Not according to the people who run Canton.
Which is definitely not Roger Goodell.
Seriously, this is the stupidest moral grandstanding ever written in human history. But wait, you have to see what he calls one of his next chapters:
More Proof of the Decline of Western Civilization:
You have got to be SHITTING ME.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio filed a lawsuit last week against the operator of a House of Representatives cafeteria, claiming he is owed $150,000 because a sandwich he bought contained "dangerous substances" -- namely, an olive pit. The lawsuit claims Kucinich suffered dental harm plus "pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment."
This is actually funny, seeing as the plaintiff is a 5'5" man married to a statuesque 6'0" woman. But seriously, who puts a pit or a seed in a sandwich a man is going to bite into? Evil people.
According to the White House transcript, President Barack Obama was interrupted by applause 79 times during last week's State of the Union address, including for such generic pronouncements as, "We need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information, from high-speed rail to high-speed Internet." The president received 45 standing ovations, including for such generic pronouncements as, "Let's fix what needs fixing and let's move forward."
I don't want people to be excited about the future of our country, and catchphrases are Satan. He laid out a plan, too, but just like me reading your shitty, long, diatribe-filled, bowel movement of a column (someone needs to stop drinking all this metamucil), you decided to forgo the parts with a plan. Good for you. Get your little pistol ready, THE CHINESE WILL BE HERE IN TEN MINUTES! GET TO THE BUNKER, TMQ FAMILY! GOOOO!
Standing ovations for generic comments -- in 2010, Obama brought the crowd to its feet merely with the words "small business" -- have become part of political theater. Obama received 37 standing ovations during his February 2009 speech to Congress, and 46 standing ovations in his 2010 State of the Union talk. Members of Congress know that when the president speaks, standing to clap is a way to get television cameras to pan off the president toward them.
And to show they want to actually get something done. And why not show these legislators sitting mixed together as opposed to the usual separation along party lines. It's refreshing after the shooting in Arizona, despite all this ridiculous rape talk.
But there's a larger problem at work -- too many standing ovations at theatrical shows, awards ceremonies, all kinds of public events.
Yeah, you don't spend 2 days following the NFL games passing stool onto a typewriter and making some intern put it all down and update it for the 21st century. Those are MY precious god damn MINUTES!
The Oscars and Golden Globes stop so often for the audience to rise that the evenings are like aerobics classes for the Hollywood elite.
Lord knows Kathy Bates needs it.
Today's Broadway shows, no matter how bad, often end with standing ovations, while rare is the high school musical that does not conclude with the audience on its feet.
Again, people not working hard enough for Greg(g). But come on, did you see Ricky Gervais? And did you see someone get concussed at Spiderman in musical version? I bet Greg(g)'s kids look out into the audience after their school plays and start bawling when they see the one seat where DEAR OL' DAD is still sitting, unappreciative of your terrible performance as Nathan Detroit.
Standing ovations are supposed to acknowledge a remarkable insight or moving performance -- not merely that a politician spoke, or a curtain closed.
Look, I don't give a standing ovation for every play I see, but usually I see good plays, not the ones you've been seeing:
