The National Football League for years has been top dog, for years has been the best sport in America and for years has been the best entertainment in America. The NFL has been Superman, Batman and Hercules combined in terms of its popularity, it just can’t be beat. But the one issue that many people have overlooked about the NFL is its violence factor which has now taken a turn for the worst.
Last weekend this violence problem that the NFL has came to a gruesome and sad point when Chiefs Linebacker Javon Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend and then proceeded to drive to Arrowhead Stadium where he then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. Some argued that the murder-suicide was because of Belcher’s head trauma from all his years in football and some argued that Belcher’s anger and rage got the best of him. Either way you argue it, this should not happen, Belcher’s child should not have become an orphan in an hour span, this should not happen to a football player.
No one should have do deal with an event like the Chiefs did with Javon Belcher and if it is true that Belcher’s psychotic episode was because of trauma to the head for his years in the NFL then something has to change and not something little, something big, something drastic because no three month year old baby should have both her parents be involved in a murder-suicide just because her dad played a child’s sport.
The Violence of the sport will never change that is something that we cant control. What we can control is the help we give these players, physically and mentality. The NFL needs to start to make an effort on giving teams more doctors to work with these players on emotional stress and physical trauma that they have sustained over their careers.
“I think that violence will always be a part of the sport”, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a state of the NFL press conference “I think that is what will keep bringing the fans back and I think that is the reason why the sport is so popular.”
The League also needs to pay attention these cases more often. We always here about the concussion sustained and who sustained it but rarely do we hear about the aftermath and rarely do we here about what that player goes through when he tries to go on a live with that injury. Players like Jim McMahon, Jamal Lewis and Tony Dorsett who are now retired deal everyday with dementia and memory loss due to all the blows to the head they received during there playing days. That should not happen, these people should not be cheated out the back half of their lives just because they played a game that they loved, a game, a child’s game.
The NFL cant be like this, it cant carry this burden because if it does then its spot on the top of the American sports world will be in jeopardy. This violence has gone on long enough, The NFL needs change and lots of it.