Posts: 6,721
Threads: 249
Joined: Jan 2013
I find it weird that people are only asking this question after all of the mental health questions come up. I know a few ex-players are they all have physical problems, mostly bad joints/backs. Is having an elevated chance of depression (etc) really all that worse than having back problems 40 years earlier than normal? I dunno, it's not obvious to me that it is.
Anyway, at this point there's basically no one who's naive about this. These are all adults and they're making their own choice. I don't see where my decision to watch the game factors in. Yes, I know the audience is why the sport exists in its current form, but, again, if a young man decides it's worth it to pursue that dream, who am I to say he's wrong? People make choices that shorten their lives (on average) all the time, as long as they're not ignorant about the risks I don't see why it's anyone else's problem.
Finally, if it weren't for football how many fewer poor kids would have an education? How many lives has football immeasurably improved for every sad story like Junior Seau? I have to think that ratio is rather large. It's not at all obvious to me that football is a net negative for American society, I'm inclined to think it's a substantial net positive.
