The NFL is dying. It doesn’t look like it, but the NFL is dying a death that is going to come faster than most people realize. Most importantly, it’s a death that is almost entirely self-caused.
I’m well aware that the Super Bowl brings in more than 100 million viewers a year. I’m aware that the NFL still cuts across the political spectrum better than any other league. I’m also aware of how football is as much a cultural identity in some places as it is a sport. But change happens rapidly, and the NFL’s trajectory is steep and downward.
Technology will not catch up fast enough to solve football’s concussion problem. It is a problem that has always been there, like any disease before it was discovered, but now research is causing change at the most fundamental levels of the game.
Despite the NFL’s best efforts to repress concussion research, the truth is coming out and youth football leagues are losing players. This isn’t to say that youth football will suddenly disappear, especially in football-crazy states. But as youth numbers continue to decline and parents shift their attention to other sports, the NFL will hit a point of diminishing returns.
As youth involvement decreases, the college product will get worse, and with it, so will the incoming NFL draft classes. Poorer play increases injuries, leading to shorter NFL careers.
The way the NFL has handled the issue of concussions is a greater threat to its profitability than concussions themselves. It tried to bury the issue rather than acknowledging it existed.
But that’s what the NFL does. It does not solve problems. It tries to bury them until they metastasize to a point that there is no controlling them. And then the NFL comes off like it always does: ignorant, misled, and well behind the curve.
After two years of players kneeling during the national anthem, and the NFL taking a direct revenue hit of about $30 million and a total viewership decline of 10 percent, the league decided, without consulting the NFLPA, to outlaw kneeling during the national anthem, by instituting a fine.
After announcing the rule change, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the following:
“We want people to be respectful to the national anthem. We want people to stand. That’s all personnel, and make sure they treat this moment in a respectful fashion. That’s something we think we owe. We have been very sensitive in making sure we give players choices, but we do believe that that moment is important and one we are going to focus on.”
The league has no moral compass and it has not been sensitive in giving players choices, but you already knew that. Colin Kaepernick, despite being a better quarterback than many starting NFL quarterbacks, has been black-balled from the league for the last two years because he was the first player to kneel during the anthem, and of course, because he’s black.
The NFL is not losing revenue because players were kneeling. It will not stop losing revenue because it outlawed kneeling.
It is losing revenue because it treats its players like inmates. It’s losing revenue because people in charge, like Houston Texans’ racist owner Bob McNair, said of the protests that the league can’t have “inmates running the prison.”
But the true cause for player censorship is that the “brilliant” minds that run the NFL are locked into an archaic, all-controlling mentality that demands the product – the players – is presented in a way they deem fit.
McNair later recounted the statement before recounting his apology. The league either has a fundamental misunderstanding of what fans want to see, or it ignores it. It consistently fails to demonstrate a basic comprehension of how to treat its players and to predict the poor optics of its own decisions.
When Ryan Shazier limped onstage during the 2018 NFL Draft to represent the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was more tragic than inspirational. It revealed a fundamental brutality that defines football and what it can do to players like Shazier, Eric LeGrand and Joe Theismann.
Maybe this is why the NFL censors its players. Maybe it doesn’t want honesty in a game that can and does kill, especially after a player’s career is over.
But the true cause for player censorship is that the “brilliant” minds that run the NFL are locked into an archaic, all-controlling mentality that demands the product – the players – is presented in a way they deem fit.
What the NFL fails to do time and time again is to get ahead of its mistakes. The Ray Rice debacle, Deflategate, concussion research suppression and now outlawing national anthem protests have all plagued the league over the last few years, and all of those issues could have been solved by getting ahead of the problem.
The NBA is already taking over where the NFL has failed. It promotes players’ individualism and has a modern-minded commissioner who realizes player expression means profit. It is already far more popular overseas, and it will only continue to grow, while the NFL treads water and sinks in its own wake.
The more fans feel like they know players, the more they can identify with them and understand that they are not just athletes who will not just “shut up and play,” the more fans become attached to the game. The NBA realizes this. The NFL does not, and will not until it is too late.
A bunch o' words 