Tag Archives: sports

January 27, 2018 · 7:47 am

Second Chances, Learning From Past Mistakes, And The Return Of The XFL

America likes to claim that it’s the land of second chances. People, in general, are often willing to grant second chances to those who have made mistakes, failed, or were just the victim of bad luck. Some end up needing more than second chances, but we’re willing to give them to those who prove they have a vision.

We do it in our personal lives as well, giving second chances to those we love. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. However, the first step, and arguably the most important, is giving that chance to someone, even when you haven’t forgotten the extent of their mistake.

That brings me to the XFL. I’m sorry, but there’s just no way to effectively transition to this topic. I know the title alone sounded like a jumbled compilation of random thoughts from someone who talks about everything from sex robots to superhero movies. I promise I’m going somewhere with this. I also promise it’s both relevant and applicable.

To those who haven’t heard the big news, the XFL is back. A full 17 years after this eccentric, over-the-top league that inspired the likes of “He Hate Me” and glorified brutal hits is making a comeback. Vince McMahon, the colorful personality who turned wrestling into a billion-dollar entertainment juggernaut, is taking another shot at creating a new football league to compete with the towering Goliath that is the NFL.

As a self-professed football fan whose picks for this past season were dead wrong, I’m genuinely intrigued by this news. I won’t let myself get too excited about it just yet, given how badly the XFL failed the first time, but I am willing to give it my attention, as well as a second chance.

The story of the first incarnation of the XFL is an amazing story. The fact that it also involves exceedingly sexy cheerleaders doesn’t hurt it’s appeal either. Just last year, ESPN did a documentary on that story called “30 For 30: This Was The XFL.” If you want a comprehensive take on what happened to this over-the-top league, this I highly recommend you check this out.

By the end, you’ll appreciate why giving McMahon and the XFL a second chance is such a big deal. It may even give you a better appreciation of why second chances are so hard to give at times. In a sense, this second incarnation of the XFL may end up being a case study on the underlying merit of second chances or the lack thereof.

Whether it’s to a professional athlete, an ex-lover, or an employee, second chances are hard because our brains are wired to remember failures more vividly than successes. The whole notion of “once bitten, twice shy” has actual biology and evolutionary forces behind it. Failure in nature can sometimes mean failure to survive.

The last time the XFL failed, it cost both McMahon and NBC $35 million each. The greatly inflates the price of a second chance, to say the least. Why, in that context, should we still give it one?

Well, I can only speak for myself. I’m not a sports expert any more than I’m a brain surgeon. However, in the spirit of second chances and learning from past mistakes, there are a few I think are worth considering with both the XFL and life in general.

A Second Chance Can Prove You’ve Learned From Failure (And Are Able To Learn In General)

This is as valuable a skill in helping the new XFL succeed as it is for anyone who has ever screwed up in life, which covers pretty much everybody. This is probably the most important aspect of second chances. It gives an opportunity for someone to do more than just claim they’ve learned. Now, they can show it.

Say what you will about Vince McMahon and a lot has been said. He’s an entertainer and a businessman. He wants to make money and, if his net worth is any indication, he’s pretty damn good at it. You do not get that rich by never learning from your mistakes.

It’s hard to say for certain what McMahon will do differently at this point. However, if the content of his announcement is any indication, he’s very much aware of why the XFL failed the first time. He’s ready to take those hard, not to mention expensive, lessons and try again.

Given the breadth of McMahon’s success, he’s someone who can make more out of second chances than most. That’s why I’m going to give him this one, even if I find his persona annoying.

Second Chances Reveals Opportunities Otherwise Not Seen

It’s a common theme in business, romance, and everything in between. Both failure and success create opportunities. The failure of “Batman and Robin” paved the way for “Batman Begins.” The success of the iPhone paved the way for the booming smartphone business.

One failed relationship can also strengthen another. The many failures of other football leagues have only served to strengthen the dominance of the NFL. However, sometimes success can have pitfalls. The past few years have not been kind to the NFL, to say the least. Given the sheer size of this entertainment behemoth, it’s an easy target.

In that respect, the XFL’s timing couldn’t be better. It’s coming along at a time when fans are somewhat disillusioned with the NFL, but have little alternatives beyond the hopelessly corrupt NCAA. The XFL could finally give the NFL the kind of competition that is necessary for any product, service, or art to innovate.

Let’s face it. We humans are a competitive species. If someone is doing something better than us, be it football or underwater basket weaving, we want to match and exceed them. It drives us to be better. It helps make us better people.

Football needs that right now. The NFL needs that. The XFL has the perfect opportunity to achieve this. Combined with the lessons of their first failure, they have much more going for them now than they did in 2001.

Greater Risks Bring Greater Rewards (And Greater Lessons)

This is probably the most important aspect of second chances for both the XFL and for life, in general. Everything that’s worth doing, whether it’s creating a new football league or finding the love of your life, requires a certain degree of risk. Some aren’t willing to risk that much, but those who are have a chance to achieve much more.

I say this as someone who avoided taking major risks until much later in life. Looking back on how I carried myself in my youth, I regret not taking more risks. Hindsight has revealed that I missed out on some pretty big rewards, both material and personal. Sometimes, you really have to do what your brain says is insanely risky to get those kinds of rewards.

What Vince McMahon is doing qualifies as exceedingly risky. He’s putting up $100 million of his own money to make the second incarnation of the XFL happen. He’s also taking on an organization in the NFL with obscene levels of influence, both economically and culturally.

At the moment, most people probably think he’s crazy and bound to fail. Those people aren’t willing to take the risk, but none of them have a shot at the big reward that McMahon is seeking. Even if the chances of the XFL succeeding are less than one percent, it’s still greater than zero and that’s all the chance you need with a second chance.

A Second Chance Can Also Help Fix Broken Or Flawed Systems

This is the part of the new XFL that has me the most intrigued, as a football fan. That’s because, as it stands, the system for developing players for the NFL is basically a cartel wrapped in a monopoly. The NCAA is the cartel. The NFL is the monopoly. If you want to make a living playing football, these are the sole gatekeepers.

It’s a system with many flaws, which have been documented on more than one occasion. The problem is there’s no incentives to fix those flaws. Neither the NCAA nor the NFL have any pressure to do so. They wield total power over all things football and can be as unjust as they want.

The XFL can change that. They can shake up a system that does plenty to screw over college players and professionals if they fail to make it in the NFL. They can provide a new path, bring new ideas to the table, and take chances that a cartel and a monopoly don’t even think to take.

It wouldn’t be the first time a monopoly got broken up. In most peoples’ lives, they either avoid situations where someone has all the leverage or work to subvert it. We do that with the people we work with and the people we love. Again, it often requires that we take risks and chances. However, it only has to work once to affect change.

It’s still not clear just what the new XFL will bring to the table or if it will succeed. For now, it has many forces working against it. However, as both a football fan and someone who sees the merit of second chances, I’m willing to give it one.

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January 20, 2018 · 8:12 am

Quality Life Lessons From The Cleveland Browns And Their Fans

NFL: SEP 18 Ravens at Browns

Even though I often say that the world is getting better by most measures, I don’t deny that it’s not improving for a sizable part of the global population. There are parts of the world still racked with disease, poverty, and despair of all kind. The unfortunate people in these parts deserve our respect, sympathy, and support.

However, there’s one particular part of that suffering population I want to focus on. While 2017 might have been bad for quite a few people, there’s one group of people whose anguish is unique in terms of its breadth and context. That group is the Cleveland Browns and their long-suffering fans.

Being a football fan, who often finds himself defending the unflattering situations in which the NFL often finds itself, I follow most major news stories surrounding the NFL throughout the season. Few stories have been as disheartening as those involving the Cleveland Browns, who became only the second team to lose all 16 games in 2017.

In terms of a major sports team in a major American city with a rich sports history, you literally cannot get worse than the 2017 Cleveland Browns. Between their long-standing issues at quarterback, a terrible track record in the NFL Draft, and a high turnover of coaches in the past several years, the Cleveland Browns have set a solemn standard for ineptitude.

It doesn’t matter how disappointed you were with your favorite team this year. It doesn’t matter how upset you were when they got eliminated from the playoffs, lost to a hated rival, or made a bone-headed play that made you ashamed to be affiliated with them. Cleveland Browns fans had it worse. There’s just no way around it.

However you feel about the city of Cleveland, their sports teams, or LeBron James, you can’t help but feel bad for the fans of the Browns. They are a very passionate bunch, one whose history includes big names like Paul Brown, Jim Brown, and Bernie Kosar. Given the heartbreak they’ve endured over the years, this latest news is just salt in the wound.

I’m sure there are plenty of Browns fans out there who could talk for hours about how rough it is, being a Browns fan. Up until 2016, being a Cubs fans was the only fair comparison. Now, the Browns are very much alone in their solemn state. It’s a modern tragedy that seems downright masochistic to some.

That’s exactly why the decision by some fans to hold a parade to celebrate their ineptitude is so remarkable. It wasn’t a prank or an elaborate joke, either. This parade really did happen and it managed to draw over 2,000 people.

To some, it seems funny that a team that had such a historically bad season is worth celebrating. To others, it may seem like an elaborate form of therapy, holding a parade instead of just wallowing in the misery of being such a historically bad team. Personally, I see it as an important life lesson, of sorts, that we would all be wise to heed.

Losing in any capacity is hard, whether it’s a major sports team or just losing your keys. There’s actual psychology behind it that is wired into us, even as children. Losing, especially dealing with it, can be downright painful for some people. It’s like suffering a nasty wound and having that wound fester.

That’s why coping skills are so important. Most of us who aren’t billionaires or Tom Brady are going to endure our share of losing in life. Our ability to cope and learn from those losses help shape the kind of person we are. There’s a right way to cope and many wrong ways. Too many wrong ways risks breaking someone mentally or just making them an asshole.

When it comes to the coping skills of Cleveland Browns fans, throwing a parade and celebrating the absurdity of their team’s ineptitude is actually pretty damn healthy. Unlike the fans who riot when their team loses a championship game, this parade caused no real property damage.

It didn’t involve people angrily lashing out, which has been proven to be bad for you. It didn’t involve angry protests, which can be hit or miss in terms of effectiveness. It was a parade, one in which Browns fans overtly acknowledged their team’s failures and essentially accepted it. From a psychological and societal standpoint, that’s pretty damn healthy.

There’s even some real philosophy behind this concept, one that goes beyond sports and their fans. It’s called absurdism, the idea that in order to cope with the struggle to find meaning in a seemingly-meaningless world, we must embrace the absurd condition of life in general. We should even celebrate it.

Some philosophers cite the story of the myth of Sisyphus, the man doomed to endlessly push a boulder up a cliff for all eternity, only to fail every time. However, through the lens of absurdism, Sisyphus is actually the happiest guy in the world because he ascribes meaning to his meaningless act. He doesn’t see what he does as futile. He sees it as purpose and he celebrates it, as such.

The situation for the Cleveland Browns may not be as hopeless as Sisyphus, as many bad teams have gone from worst to first before, but the fact that fans are celebrating the struggle reflects strange comfort our minds find in absurdism. We know the situation is bad and it literally can’t get much worse, but we accept and embrace it. As such, it doesn’t’ destroy us. It actually makes our collective psyche stronger.

 

This is even more useful in sports because, even after such a historically bad season, things are pretty much guaranteed to get better for the Cleveland Browns. They literally cannot get worse. They enter the 2018 season with a new general manager, abundant cap space, and multiple high draft picks. They will get better. The history of bad NFL teams makes that a given.

Until that improvement comes, though, holding a parade to celebrate the rock bottom of such a proud franchise is both fitting and healthy. It’s an act from which we can all derive lessons. Sure, we all have bad days and some of them are worse than most. However, things do tend to improve when we know how to cope.

For the Cleveland Browns, such good coping skills will make future victories and championships feel that much sweeter. It may take a while. It may take a long while. As Red Sox fans and Cubs fans can attest, though, it’s worth the wait.

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September 7, 2017 · 7:03 am

Jack Fisher’s Picks For The 2017 NFL Season

It’s almost here! It’s been seven long months for football fans. Sure, I’ve found ways to pass the time, talking about annoying millennials, surviving fascist governments, and all things Wonder Woman. In all that time, I often checked my calendar, counting down the days until the NFL season started again. Finally, I can stop counting.

I’ve made my love of football clear before and now, that love has returned. My heart and my loins are in overdrive with anticipation. I’m sorry if that gives some of you a disturbing mental picture, but I stand by it. I’m just that excited.

I know football has made the news for all the wrong reasons recently. Some are saying football is in decline. I’ve countered that sentiment in my own sexy way. For now, that debate can take a back seat because the first kickoff of the season has arrived and I’m ready to build my Sundays around football again.

Whether you’re a fan of football or just hate Tom Brady’s smug, perfectly chiseled face, it’s a big moment for sports here in America. I’m ready to embrace it like party at the Playboy Mansion.

As such, I’d like to do something I’ve never done on this blog before. I would like to take the same energy I use to write about sexier topics like orgasms and sleeping naked, channel it in a new way, and break down the upcoming NFL season. At the moment, every team is undefeated. Every team has a chance to make this year their year. Yes, that includes the Cleveland Browns too.

Before the first play can be run, I’m going to look at each NFL division, make a few predictions, and offer my take as to who will hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I know people don’t always come here for sports talk, but I promise I’ll get back to talking about sexier topics. For now, here’s Jack Fisher’s official analysis for the 2017 NFL Season.

AFC East

This is probably the easiest division for anyone to break down. It has been for nearly two decades now. It’s basically Tom Brady vs. everyone else and Brady still has the advantage. Love him or hate him, he’s the best. Last year’s Super Bowl performance proved it. He has five Super Bowl rings, more than any other quarterback to ever play the game. That’s all you need to know about the AFC East.

That’s not to say the Patriots’ reign is safe. Tom Brady is 40 and the list of quarterbacks who dominate that age is exceedingly short. On top of that, he lost one of his best receivers, Julian Edelman, to a season-ending ACL injury. That came after one of their best defensive players, Rob Ninkovich, retired.

Even with these losses, though, the competition in their division is limited at best. Only the Miami Dolphins pose a meaningful threat and they now have to rely on Jay Cutler to get them back to the playoffs, despite his noticeable decline during his final years in Chicago.

While Miami has a balanced team, they’re still a work-in-progress while the Jets and the Bills are so lacking in talent that they would need to overachieve to a historic degree to threaten the Patriots. That is as unlikely as Ryan Leaf making a comeback, but stranger things have happened in the NFL.

Jack’s Pick: New England Patriots

AFC North

This is a division that has been in flux in recent years. After the Cincinnati Bengals won a few division titles, it looked like they were going to leapfrog over the Steelers and the Ravens, who have dominated the division for a decade. Then, the Bengals took a nose-dive last season, the Ravens got slammed by injuries, and the Browns were the worst team in football.

At the moment, the Steelers have the most firepower with Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell. That was enough to carry them to the AFC Championship game last year, but that run took a toll on Roethlisberger, whose lengthy injury history is starting to catch up with his toughness.

Their ability to make it back to the AFC Championship game depends primarily on how well the Ravens and Bengals rebound. Both teams added new talent in the off-season and the Steelers did not keep pace. I suspect it’ll be a much closer battle this time. However, the Steelers still have the edge.

Until I see signs that Roethlisberger can’t do it anymore, his team has the advantage. I wouldn’t be surprised if the division title came down to the last week of the season, but so long as their core players stay healthy, which is big if, the Steelers will come out ahead.

Jack’s Pick: Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC South

This division, more than any other division in the AFC, is up for grabs, albeit for all the wrong reasons. It’s a division that got too used to Peyton Manning dominating it for over a decade with the Colts. For a while, it seemed like Andrew Luck would continue that tradition. Then, he started taking too many hits. Now, he’s dealing with a shoulder injury that has kept him out of the Colts’ entire offseason program.

With each year that passes, Luck seems to get unluckier. Conversely, the Titans and Texans seem to get better. That continued this year with the Texans drafting Deshaun Watson, the hero of the NCAA Championship game earlier this year. The Titans also loaded up on defensive players to supplement their evolving offense, which has steadily grown under the hand of Marcus Mariota.

Last year, the Texans managed to win their division with a guy named Tom Savage at quarterback and with J. J. Watt, arguably the best defensive player in football, on injured reserve. Watt is back this year, but so is Mariota. These two teams will likely be in a dogfight until the end of the season, with the Colts and Jaguars struggling for relevancy.

In the end, though, even if the Texans decide to play Watson, I can’t see their defense bailing them out this time. The division is changing and I think until the Texans fix their quarterback situation, they won’t be able to ascend much higher.

Jack’s Pick: Tennessee Titans 

AFC West

This is another division in flux. It was dominated for several years by Peyton Manning and the Broncos. Then, Manning retired and the division became a free-for-all. One week, the Broncos were the best team. The next, it was the Raiders. Then, it was the Chiefs. You would never even expect that the Chargers still have a Pro Bowl quarterback in Phillip Rivers under center.

Last year, it seemed as though the Raiders were emerging as the dominate team in that division. Derek Carr led his team to the best record in the AFC for a while. Then, he got hurt and was out for the season. That injury effectively derailed the Raiders’ chances at overcoming the established power of the Steelers and Patriots.

Now, Carr is healthy, but it’s hard to say whether he’ll be the same player he was last year. At the same time, the Chiefs are a team on the rise. Andy Reid has what might be one of the most balanced teams in the NFL. His team isn’t flashy, but they get the job done. In a division without a dominate force like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, that’s all you need.

I know the Raiders are a popular pick to keep on rising. I know they have more talent at the skill position. However, I’m not yet convinced that they’ve taken the necessary steps to compete on a larger stage. I’ve also never been convinced that the Broncos can win another playoff game with Trevor Siemian as their quarterback.

Jack’s Pick: Kansas City Chief

NFC East

This is definitely my favorite division in all of football and not just because I live in between the passionate fan-bases of the Redskins, Eagles, and Giants. Every year, this division seems to attract some level of upheaval. Many times, it involves the Dallas Cowboys. If it were a soap opera, it would be the biggest show that didn’t feature dragons, incest, and a naked Emilia Clark.

Last year, the Dallas Cowboys dominated the division, effectively coasting their way to a division title. They’re favored, by many, to do it again. However, history is not on their side. No team has won back-to-back division titles in the NFC East in over a decade. On top of that, the Cowboys have a nasty tradition of regressing after a year of dominance.

It’s worth noting that the one team they couldn’t seem to beat, the New York Giants, is in their division. It’s also worth noting that the Giants made the playoffs last year under a first-year head coach and with Odell Beckham Jr. being a distraction, no less. Like it or not, Eli Manning has two Super Bowl rings and the Cowboys have only two playoff wins in this millennium.

The Cowboys have a rough schedule ahead of them. The Eagles and Redskins are also teams that are growing, in terms of talent and experience. With so much drama in Dallas, along with the ongoing Ezekiel Elliott situation, it’s hard to see how they would manage a tougher schedule. They may still make the playoffs, but their lack of experience keeps me from giving them much confidence.

Jack’s Pick: New York Giants

NFC North

This is another division that has been dominated/plagued by one team and one all-time-great player. The Green Bay Packers are that team and Aaron Rogers is that player. Tom Brady may have more Super Bowl rings, but Rogers has more skill with a supporting cast that isn’t nearly as loaded as New England. He got into a major rut last season, but still managed to get hot and take the Packers deep into the playoffs.

Rogers and the Packers have been the bane of every other team in this division and that was before Adrian Peterson left Minnesota. At the moment, the only team that has even close to the amount of talent needed to threaten the Packers are the Detroit Lions. They have a solid quarterback in Mathew Stafford and solid skill players, but they’ve yet to show they can regularly compete against the Packers.

With the Bears rebuilding and the Vikings unable to go very far with Sam Bradford as their quarterback, there isn’t much of a threat to the Packers’ dominance this year. That said, Rogers’ propensity to get into ruts while his team struggles around him has become more common in recent years. If that keeps happening, then sooner or later, it’s going to catch up with them.

I’m not saying that’ll happen this year. I’m also not saying it’s impossible for a team like the Lions or the Vikings to shock the Packers and end their reign. At the moment, though, it’s unlikely.

Jack’s Pick: Green Bay Packers

NFC South

This division confounds me more than any other division. It’s not because it’s full of bad teams. It’s quite the opposite. Every team in this division has the potential to be a champion. I can easily see every one of these teams getting hot and making a deep playoff run.

The Saints have a Hall of Fame quarterback in Drew Brees. The Panthers have an all-pro in Cam Newton. The Bucs have a rising star in Jameis Winston. It’s almost shocking to remember that the Falcons made it to the Super Bowl last year and were just a quarter away from winning it. This division may very well be the strongest division in football.

While the Falcons have proven they can make it to the Super Bowl, they lost their offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, in the offseason. They also lost key contributors on their defense while their rivals in Carolina and Tampa Bay improved. Given the Falcons’ history with struggling to sustain their success, I think there are many forces working against them.

Picking a winner here means picking a team that has just one more player who can make one more play than the other guys. I don’t think the Saints, with their aging roster, have that player. However, I do think the Panthers got that player this spring when they drafted Christian McCaffrey. While I still think the race will be close, I think Cam Newton being healthy and having a potent new offensive weapon will be the deciding factor.

Jack’s Pick: Carolina Panthers

NFC West

Every division has good players. Every division has at least one good team that can compete with the best. Every now and then, though, one particular division seems to decline for a wide variety of reasons. Since the Seahawks lost Super Bowl XLIX, the division has hit more than a few rocks.

The Seahawks are still the most complete team. Russell Wilson is still the best quarterback in that division by a wide margin, but the Seahawks have found ways to struggle over the past few years. Their defense has not been able to dominate like it did when it guided the team to back-to-back Super Bowls. It also no longer has dominating players at the skill positions like Marshawn Lynch.

At the same time, the rest of the division is trying to reorganize itself. The L.A. Rams have a new head coach in Sean McVay, who has a young quarterback in Jared Goff to develop. The San Francisco 49ers also have a new coach in Kyle Shanahan, who was part of the Falcon’s Super Bowl run. Both teams seemed to bottom out last year and are ready to ascend, just as the Seahawks’ dominance is waning.

Arizona might still be the biggest threat to the Seahawks, but Carson Palmer’s age and a lack of skill players outside of Larry Fitzgerald makes me skeptical that they can keep pace. Arizona is one of those teams that only ever seems to do well when they get hot. Unless that happens and other teams improve, the edge is still with Seattle.

Jack’s Pick: Seattle Seahawks

Super Bowl LII Pick

At the beginning of every NFL season, it’s next to impossible to pick who will end up in the Super Bowl. For every hot pick that lands, there are a hundred more that fail miserably. It’s part of what makes football great. It is possible for a seemingly unbeatable team to get beaten, as the 2007 Patriots found out. It’s also possible for a team to go from 4 and 12 to the Super Bowl, as the 1999 St. Louis Rams found out.

There’s a non-zero chance that both could happen this year. There’s also a chance that everything goes exactly as the experts predict. The fact that both chances are equally unlikely is what gives football so much excitement.

It’s with that little prelude that I predict the following Super Bowl LII results

Carolina Panthers Defeat The Pittsburgh Steelers By A Score Of 31-27

I know the Patriots are the popular pick and the Cowboys have a lot of momentum, but I think Cam Newton rebounds this year, having played most of last year hurt. I also think Christian McCaffrey is the X-factor that will push the Panthers past the competition.

The Steelers have a lot of firepower, especially in wake of the injuries and retirements suffered by the Patriots. However, Roethlisberger’s age and injury history is just too much to ignore. I think they can still make a run, but the Panthers have just a few more play-makers that’ll put them over the top.

That’s my pick. They may be dead wrong, but I look forward to finding out as the 2017 NFL season begins.

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August 3, 2017 · 7:04 am

On Football, CTE, And Its (Not So) Bleak Future

When you love something a lot, you’ll make any excuse possible to keep loving it, no matter how unhealthy it may be. Whether it’s a toxic relationship or skydiving naked over the arctic, our desire to love and preserve such love knows no bounds. It’s a testament to the power of excuses and our capacity for excuse banking.

We’ve all loved something that may or may not be unhealthy, if not downright toxic, at some point in our lives. We may know in the back of our heads that it’s unhealthy. We may even admit it to someone. That still doesn’t stop us from loving it. We’ll still try to find a way to make that love work. Like an alcoholic or a heavy smoker in denial, we don’t want to admit its a problem. In the long run, it often comes back to hurt us.

I say all this because in recent years, there are a growing number of voices calling American football the new tobacco. Apparently, getting hit in the head by a bunch of 200-pound athletes is just as dangerous as inhaling smoke. In the same way smoking contributes to dreaded diseases like lung cancer, football contributes to a new dreaded disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

CTE has become the most dreaded three-letter acronym to football players since ACL. It is a new kind of disease, one that ravages the brain of former athletes. It causes all sorts of horrors such as headaches, memory loss, erratic behavior, dementia, tremors, vertigo, and suicidal tendencies. These are symptoms that can’t get more terrifying without involving explosive diarrhea.

It has already rocked the sport, so much so that it inspired a crappy Will Smith movie called “Concussion.” Sure, it tanked, but it helped raise awareness to the issue for fans and players alike. In wake of the deaths of several high-profile football players, including Hall of Famers like Ken Stabler and Junior Seau, it’s taken on a tragic element that cannot be ignored.

Then, just this past week, a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association published a report that probably has everyone at NFL offices banging their heads against the wall, if only to provide a sense of irony. Of the 111 brains of former football players they studied, 110 showed signs of CTE. In terms of sheer math, you literally can’t get a correlation that more precise without being paid for by oil companies.

This has led many to speculate that football’s days are numbered. Never mind the fact that it’s still, by a wide margin, the most popular sport in America. Never mind the fact that it generates billions in revenue and has some of the most passionate fans of any sport. An issue like this is just too damaging. A disease as awful as CTE is bound to drive people away from this sport, right?

Okay, I’m going to stop with the dire doom-saying rhetoric and call a timeout on the whole conversation. I do so while freely admitting, and admitting proudly, that I love NFL football and football in general. It is my favorite sport. I build my entire Sundays around watching NFL games.

I acknowledge that it’s a violent sport, one that leads to major injuries for various players. I make no excuses in my love for that kind of gladiator-style violence. I’m as human as anyone else reading this blog. Violent sports appeal to the primal parts of our brains. Like admitting you love an extra orgasm every now and then, there’s nothing wrong with admitting you love contact sports.

Does that make fans and team owners bad people for promoting a sport that leads to such a terrible health ailment like CTE? The answer is no. It doesn’t, not unless you’re willing to say car companies and car buyers are terrible people for promoting a product that killed over 32,000 people in the United States alone in 2015.

However, football fans and the NFL can take comfort in the knowledge that car companies have already created a model for addressing issues like CTE. There was no getting around it, even during the days of Henry Ford. Cars could be very dangerous to those who drove them and drove them poorly. Early cars were basically steel death traps.

Since killing customers is never a good business practice, car companies invested heavily in new safety features. They developed now-standard features such as air bags, seat-belts, and even on-board computers that stop your car for you. Cars today are safer than they’ve ever been before.

So how does this help football? A car is different from a human brain by orders of magnitude. The sheer complexity of the human brain ensures that a helmet or an airbag just isn’t going to cut it in terms of protection. We barely understand how the damn thing works. How can we hope to protect it?

Well, keep in mind that people once said the same thing about mapping the human genome. The human brain isn’t some magical object that runs on wizard spells and unicorn farts. It’s a hunk of biomatter no bigger than a football, ironically enough. It operates on the basic rules of chemistry and biology. It’s not some rough-cut diamond wherein one single flaw means it can never be fixed.

The brain can and does heal itself. It has to in a chaotic world that most people struggle to process. Sure, the damage endured by football players is greater than most. You can say that about anyone who spends four hours out of the week putting a target on their head and inviting others to hit it. What you can’t say, however, is that the problem of damaged brains in contact sports is insurmountable.

We’re not talking about teaching quantum physics to a hamster, here. We’re talking about a physical problem with the human body. As flawed as the human body may be, it’s also fairly malleable. The brain is no exception.

Back in 2013, a kid in North Carolina had half his brain cut out to alleviate his debilitating seizures. There’s no amount of head trauma any football player could endure that’s akin to having half a brain cut out. However, the kid recovered and his brain was able to effectively rewire itself so he could live a fairly normal life. That’s because of a little thing called neuroplasticity.

That’s just a fancy technical way of saying the brain can rewire and repair itself. Given how humans adapted in an environment full of giant predators and coconuts falling from trees, we kind of need our brains to do that sort of thing. The only issue is we still don’t understand it. However, we do understand the horrific damage done by diseases like CTE.

Therein lies the flaw in debate surrounding the future of football. It deals with something with which we don’t have a clear understanding. Even those who participated in the CTE study clearly admitted that it had its flaws. One of the researchers said:

“Families don’t donate brains of their loved ones unless they’re concerned about the person. So all the players in this study, on some level, were symptomatic. That leaves you with a very skewed population.”

That’s entirely understandable and a common problem within the realm of science. However, that will do little to alleviate the fear and dread among football players and football fans. We’re already seeing some players retire early due to concerns about concussions. Who can blame them, though? It’s a scary thought, the idea that playing a sport you love will destroy your brain.

However, fear often obscures the lens of reality. Add doom-saying, such as those who think a multi-billion dollar industry like the NFL is going to die, and you can expect reality to disappear from the conversation. The truth, in a sense, is not something you’ll find in a Will Smith movie. It also gives football fans and football players reason to hope.

Since the problem of CTE is a physical health problem, then that means there is a medical solution. Sure, there’s a lot we don’t understand about the human brain or healing it, but you could’ve made that same argument back in the 80s when AIDS was first discovered. For a while, that was a true death sentence. Now, we have treatments that make the disease manageable.

Keep in mind, though, that diseases like AIDS didn’t have a multi-billion dollar industry like the NFL with huge incentives to develop such treatments. When there’s a problem to be solved and there’s a multi-billion dollar industry with an incentive to solve it, you can probably assume said industry will invest billions in treating that problem.

That means if you’re a brain researcher and you develop a treatment for concussions, you can expect a lot of money from the NFL and various sports organizations to support you. Hell, Jerry Jones from the Dallas Cowboys will probably fly you to a resort and have the Dallas Cheerleaders give you unlimited massages.

CTE is a major issue, but it’s a solvable issue. On top of preventative measures like better helmets, medical science can help. That same science is what cured Small Pox, Polio, and is on the verge of eliminating many diseases with tools like CRISPR. It’s more than up to the challenge to tackle something like CTE.

Now that awareness of the disease is growing, you can expect the NFL and medical science to start pressuring it. That’s why football is going to be okay. This isn’t like smoking. This isn’t like human sacrifice. This is a problem that can only be solved with better tools. Say what you will about the flaws in humanity. We’re still exceptionally good at certain things and making tools is one of them.

For the players playing now, it’s definitely scary. However, that’s only because there’s still plenty we don’t know. It’s not an insurmountable challenge though. It is possible to defy the odds. If anyone knows that better than most, it’s NFL players. Just ask the 2007 New York Giants.

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February 6, 2017 · 6:39 am

Happy Super Bowl Afterglow!

What a game, eh? The Super Bowl is over. Congrats to the New England Patriots and Gisele Bunchen’s husband for winning, crafting the greatest comeback in Super Bowl History. Now, the NFL season is over.

As a lifelong football fan, it’s a momentous, yet bittersweet moment. A champion has been crowned. A season has ended. For NFL fans and football fans in general, it’s the end of a beginning and the beginning of an end.

I hope everyone enjoyed the game. I certainly did. How could I not? Between the snacks, the beer, and the Lady Gaga halftime show, I achieved the true sport nirvana. As a man, it’s an amazing feeling. I won’t say it’s as good as sex. I’ll just say it’s a damn close second.

As such, today is a day of recovery. I am in no condition, physically or mentally, to discuss any overly sexy topics. Hell, even unsexy topics would be pushing it. Right now, I’m just letting my mind and body recover. I encourage everyone to do the same.

Don’t worry. I’ll be back to discussing exceedingly sexy topics soon enough. For now, get some rest, settle in for the off-season, and enjoy the post-Super Bowl afterglow. We’ve earned it.

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January 28, 2017 · 8:10 am

What Lawrence Phillips Taught Me About “Evil”

Every now and then, I come across a story, sometimes fictional and sometimes non-fictional, that resonates with me in an unexpected way. Sometimes it’s a movie. Sometimes it’s a comic book. Sometimes it’s even a video game with a powerful story that actually gets me choked up at the end.

I don’t deny it. I’m human. I may be a heterosexual man, but I do get emotional at times. Sure, I’m not one to cry when Bambi’s mother dies in a Disney movie. Everybody responds differently to certain things. It’s part of what makes us such a diverse species and it’s part of what frustrates every single marketing department that ever lived.

With that in mind, try not to bust my balls too much when I say a recent sports documentary really struck a nerve with me. That alone might not surprise too many people. Sports fans can be an emotional bunch. Just ask any Eagles fan since 1960.

However, this particular documentary involved a guy by the name of Lawrence Phillips. Okay, now try even harder not to bust my balls.

Who is Lawrence Phillips and why should we give a damn? Well, anyone who has followed the NFL or college football over the past 25 years has probably heard his name at least once. He’s not so much an athlete or a football player anymore. He’s become the ultimate cautionary tale. Get football fan talking about him and they’ll usually talk about him with the kind of disdain they usually reserve for bullshit pass interference calls.

To be fair, Phillips earned that disdain in multiple ways. He was an insanely gifted athlete who helped the University of Nebraska go undefeated for two consecutive seasons and win two BCS National Championships in the process. After that, he was drafted 6th overall by the St. Louis Rams in 1996. This is the ultimate dream for a football player and Phillips, despite all his talents, proceeded to piss it all away.

It didn’t happen all at once, but in many ways, that just made it worst. This was a guy who seemed to get arrested every other week and kept finding excuses to beat up women. By the end, he was less respected by the NFL than Scott Norwood is by Buffalo Bills fans. He is now regularly cited as one of the greatest NFL Draft Busts of all time.

Now as a noted NFL fan, I fully admit that I saw Lawrence Phillips in this light. When I follow the NFL and I see someone get into serious legal trouble, a part of me rolls my eyes and things, “At the rate he’s going, he’ll be another Lawrence Phillips.”

That’s what happens when someone becomes a cautionary tale. They become a symbol for the flaws we see in others. As a result, that person ceases to be a person. We don’t even see the person anymore. We just see what he or she represents. It’s harsh, but it’s how we process certain concepts about ourselves.

Then, when we get a chance to actually learn about that person, we find out that just calling them a “cautionary tale” is kind of a dick move because it ignores a much bigger, much more complex picture.

That’s where this documentary comes in. It’s called “Running for His Life: The Lawrence Phillips Story.” Even if you’re not a football fan, I highly recommend this movie. It accomplishes something truly remarkable. It peels back the layers of the cautionary tale that is Lawrence Phillips and reveals the man.

This isn’t a documentary that tries to make excuses. It does not try to glorify Phillips or gloss over his egregious flaws. It just explores the whole of a complicated, volatile, yet gifted man.

It spends a lot of time exploring where he came form and this is important because where we come from has a huge impact on who we are. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, but his mother moved him out to California. He was estranged from his father and did not have the best relationship with his biological mother. His home life, to put it mildly, was anything but stable.

The documentary tells stories about the abuse he suffered as a child. It even recounts a story where one of his mother’s boyfriends held him down an urinated on him. Sadly, it gets even more disturbing than that.

After running away from home, Phillips became a ward of the state and bounced around foster homes. Along the way, he lived in a few group homes with other kids. The way the documentary describes this place sounds like something that would make Charles Dickens himself cringe. These are places where things like love and innocence go to die.

Eventually, Phillips did end up in a foster home with a loving mother who tried to help him. However, the damage had been done. The boy had been scarred in ways that never truly healed. The documentary described these scars as demons that he struggled to deal with. A lot of people claim to have demons, but let’s not lie to ourselves. Some are more powerful than others.

Despite these demons, Phillips still had insane God-given talent. The documentary make sit a point to highlight just how talented this man was. By every measure, he had all the physical tools of a gifted athlete. He did try to use those tools as well. Football helped him escape the rough, abusive world he came from. He could’ve been a success story like John Randall or Randy Moss. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

The documentary eventually starts to reveal just how dark a turn this man’s life took after college. It described a man who was cold, unloved, and did not know how to show love to others. The women interviewed described a man who just could not control his emotions and when there was upheaval, violence was his first, second, and third reaction.

This fits perfectly with the mold of someone who has an abusive personality. When women’s centers list warning signs, Lawrence Phillips checks most every box. He came from a world of abuse. Naturally, that’s the kind of world he forges around him.

However, the women also took the time to emphasize how good he could be at times. That good cannot and should not be completely ignored. It’s still not an excuse, but it does make clear that this man had other aspects to his personality. He wasn’t just the scary ex-football player who abused women.

This, in my opinion, is the most important message of this documentary. It’s also the most important lesson we can glean from the story of Lawrence Phillips. I’ve talked a lot about evil on this blog. There are plenty of people who would rightly call Phillips evil for the crimes he committed, one of which may have been the murder of his cell mate in prison. However, he was still a human being.

No matter what anyone thinks about Lawrence Phillips, whether he’s a cautionary tale or a violent abuser, it doesn’t change the fact that he was a person. He was a child once. He had a life and he tried to live it. We like to think about evil people as nothing more than monsters. It’s easy to just think of them as wannabe Biff Tannen’s from “Back to the Future.” That still ignores the person and the full story of their lives.

At the end of the documentary, there’s a haunting message about Lawrence Phillips that I think many of us can relate to. It talks of a man who was so physically gifted that he could outrun anybody, but he could not outrun his demons. At one point, an old friend of his said he was always running from his demons, but in the end, the demons caught him.

Whether you’re an aspiring erotica/romance writer, a football fan, or just a decent human being trying to make sense of this crazy world, it’s a message that’s worth hearing. It’s a message we shouldn’t forget. There may very well be another Lawrence Phillips-type story in the future, but let’s not make light of that story. In the end, they’re still people. As soon as we forget that, we cease heeding the lessons of that story.

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September 11, 2016 · 10:05 am

On Football and 9/11

Today is an exciting, but solemn day. It’s inescapable. We all remember where we were 15 years ago during the September 11th attacks on Washington DC and New York. I live near Washington DC. The idea that there was a terrorist attack so close to home hit me pretty hard. I like to think people in my area have gotten used to the heightened awareness of terrorism, but there are just some things you can’t and shouldn’t get used to.

I certainly remember where I was on that day. I was still in school at the time. It wasn’t exactly announced at first because nobody knew what was going on. I only found out when I heard one of my teachers talking about it with another. This was also at a time before cell phones became really common so a lot of people were freaking out. Some kids had family who worked in the Pentagon. I really can’t imagine the kind of dread they must have felt at the time.

For me, personally, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Maybe I still don’t on some levels. Back then, I was kind of a cynical little shit. I didn’t enjoy myself at school and I often looked for the worst in everything, be it global news or algebra exams. So in many respects, I think I was kind of numb to the initial impact. As time went on, though, it the 9/11 attacks taught me some valuable lessons.

First and foremost, there is a lot of hate in this world. Human beings are capable of some pretty sadistic shit and not just to those around them. There are people who cannot or will not let go of this hate. They’ll look for any excuse to justify it.

Some use politics from several decades ago as an excuse. Some even use politics from several centuries ago. Some will use their religion, their ethnicity, or their race. At the end of the day though, all those excuses are empty and shallow. That doesn’t matter though. When people feel hate this strong, they don’t just search for reasons to justify it. They search for reasons to cling to it.

As I’ve said before on this blog, the human brain isn’t wired to be rational. It’s wired for survival. Hatred may have some survival value. It really helps to hate that hungry bear that’s attacking your friends and family when you go after it. It’s not so helpful in an era where we have to worry about nuclear weapons more than bear attacks.

It’s a tragic byproduct of our human nature. We cling to hate and seek an outlet. There are many ways to confront it. I’ve even explored a few on this blog and in my books. This is what leads me to football.

Confused? Well bear with me. I promise this isn’t a non-sequiter. Like many Americans, I love football. I’m a huge NFL fan. I build my entire Sundays around watching football. Today is no different, but since today also happens to be the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I think it provides a unique opportunity.

Football is a violent contact sport. It channels some of our most basic emotions in a way that requires the utmost skill and dedication. Emotions like hate, love, passion, excitement, dedication, drive, sorrow all come into play. Both teams have to hate each other on some levels to want to hit each other. They also have to love their teammates on some level to work with them and trust them. It’s a chaotic, but potent combination of emotions that all manifest in the form of a game.

In some respects, it’s a good metaphor for how we manage these emotions that drive us. Men who hate so much that they’re willing to kill innocent people by the thousands do a piss poor job of managing those emotions. Football players are far more skilled in that respect. With those skills, they channel the emotions of millions of fans like me into something positive. It’s an a testament to the breadth of human experiences and one we should all celebrate/commemorate on a day such as this.

So are you ready for some football? After seven long months, I sure as hell am!

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