You Can't Be Surprised When Football Players Are Violent

I love this bit from Neal Brennan. I think he sums it up perfectly. Football is so absurdly violent- we saw 2 Steelers WR get knocked out of the game with a concussion just tonight! – and we watch it like modern day gladiators. Do you know how hard it is to get a concussion? Most people aren’t just walking around getting concussed, but it happens in every game every week in the NFL. Guys are 6’4, 250 pounds of muscle running full speed at each other’s brains. The harder you hit, the more you get paid. So why are we so shocked at what we saw tonight?

Yes, it’s lunacy Myles Garrett did what he did. There’s no place for it in the game. We all agree. I want to ask a question though- why are we SO shocked? Twitter is calling for jail time. Jail time! Football is the most intense, high testosterone, body pumping adrenaline a million mgs/minute, everyone is running head first into another ginormous human, why are we so incredibly shocked by this? Swinging a helmet at someone’s head is extremely dangerous and stupid, but in the heat of the moment where your job is violence, something like this was going to happen eventually. I’m surprised we haven’t seen this way sooner. Football players on every team have been arrested for violence. The job consists mostly of violence. And we are surprised when someone is more violent?

The Bertuzzi incident happened in the NHL. Pitchers throw 100 MPH fastballs at opposing player’s heads in baseball. The Malice at the Palace in the NBA. But everyone is losing their marbles tonight. It was violent, but we’re talking about sports, and a sport where 60% is based around violence, something like this was to be expected.

What Myles did was fucked up. For once the entire internet agrees on that. Actually, I take that back. I have a couple people in my mentions blaming Mason Rudolph because he started it and Myles ended it. Touché, the internet was built on the hottest takes. But I am a little dumbfounded more people aren’t sitting around wondering what took so long for something terrible to happen in such a violent game. A league that allowed Greg Hardy 5 chances. A league that keeps giving Vontaze Burfict more money. Just..why are we so shocked?

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PS: Low-key nobody is talking about how after Rudolph was whacked with the helmet he was then blindsided onto the turf, and then was kneed right in the temple by his own teammate. It was like a WWE triple threat match with everyone using their finishers on him.