A player dying on the football field is one of Roger Goodell’s greatest fears in life, according to unnamed sources cited in a profile written by ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. on the NFL commissioner.
League spokesman Greg Aiello said he did not give much credence to the story, and that in 24 years of working with Goodell, he has never heard him say anything like that.
I don’t know whether to believe Aiello or Van Natta Jr., but either way, my advice to Goodell is simple: be afraid. Be very afraid.
An on-field player death could very well deliver a kill shot to the NFL and the sport of football as we all know it.
I know fans love to romanticize football players as anything from warring soldiers to gladiators, but seeing one die on national television would be too much for even the most bloodthirsty fan.
The league is already staring down the barrel of billions of dollars in lawsuits from former players claiming they suffered concussions and brain damage. An on-field death could tack a couple more zeros on those suits.
All the new player safety rules, research studies and NFL Evolution commercials in the world would not be enough for the sport to recover.
Former football players have died from football, but never on the field.
Former All-Pro linebacker Junior Seau was found dead in his home May 2, 2012, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Despite having no official history of concussions, Seau’s family decided to donate his brain tissue to the National Institute of Health to test for possible brain damage caused by CTE.
The results were exactly what the league feared. The family released the findings Jan. 10, from multiple independent and government researchers who determined Seau’s brain showed definite signs of CTE consistent with an individual receiving multiple head injuries.
Two weeks later, Seau’s family filed suit against the league.
This story was bad news for football, but it isn’t a death blow to the sport because no one saw it happen. No one saw Seau’s personality change, no one saw his damaged brain and, most importantly, no one saw him die.
The closest thing we have seen to a death on the football field was former Bills tight end Kevin Everett being transported motionless off the field with a spinal injury during the first week of the 2007 season.
It was a scary, gut-wrenching sight, but Everett survived and eventually regained his ability to walk. Goodell would invite him to watch the Super Bowl in his private box.
If a player died on the field, there would be no recovery, no photo shoot with the commissioner and no heart-warming follow-up story.
“I have to tell you, if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football,” President Barack Obama told The New Republic in its Feb. 11 edition.
I would too.
The future of football comes down to how long parents decide to let their children keep playing the sport, and every time they read a story on brain trauma or watch a helmet-to-helmet hit, that decision becomes a little bit more difficult.
An on-field death could kill the NFL and football, but it should not be Goodell’s greatest fear.
What happens if instead of a professional athlete, the deceased player on the field is a child?
James Moran is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Beacon, N.Y.
