The NFL's Best Referee

"No lion would hunt this zebra."

#LeagueOfDenial - An Expose on The NFL's Huge Problem With Head Trauma

Last night I watched this fascinating 2 hour documentary on Frontline about brain trauma and the violence of the NFL.  It was very well done and casts the NFL in a very bad light.  You can see how the presentation was biased but still raised many great questions that need answers.  

My prediction would be that the game of football, at least on the professional level, will not be the same game in a decade or less.  The rules will have to change so much so that the game will simply not have the same one we have today.  There will be more research coming in, more former players will continue to implode due to brain trauma, and the public pressure will be increasingly intense.  If they don't change, the game will start to lose popularity after 10-20 years because parents just won't let their kids play.

You can watch the whole thing here.  I would highly recommend it.

I found this interview with Steve Young to be quite interesting.

Wes Welker's Old Spice Commercials

Reflections on #Tebow

Jared Wilson:

It’s becoming clear to most sober-minded folks that Tebow’s skill-set is not conducive to being a starting quarterback in the NFL. It says nothing about his character or faith to make this admission. He is, by all indications, a great guy with a great testimony and a great heart. This does not make him a great quarterback. And to be more direct, I have to wonder if anyone close to Tebow is enabled to speak truthfully to him about this matter. When he was cut from the Patriots roster last week, he characteristically went out with his head high and respect on display. On his Twitter, he thanked the Patriots organization for the opportunity, and then he tweeted a few Bible verses, and then he tweeted that his dream is still to be an NFL quarterback. Now, perhaps this dream is realistic. But most people, including people who want it to be realistic, are acknowledging it doesn’t seem realistic at all. He’s had ample opportunities. Here’s my thing: The NFL is full of starting players who played one position in college that is not their position today. This includes college starting quarterbacks who find their place in the NFL as safeties, running backs, tight ends, etc. I just have to ask: At what point is Tebow’s inflexibility about his dream actually a manifestation of pride? At what point does he need to say, “Well, I can’t be a quarterback, but I will play fullback”? I can’t say. Maybe you can’t say. But surely we are close to that day? I don’t know. I just hope he doesn’t ride his stubborn dream into athletic obscurity. He is, I think, talented enough to play in the NFL, but (probably) not as quarterback.

Read the rest. Good insights on this Christian cultural phenom.

Golf Stereotypes

Nailed it again.  I am Mr Mood Swing.

How To Deal with Insane Sideline Sports Parents

I used to be a referee for junior high basketball games. Sometimes the parents would get a bit out of hand. Oftentimes I wanted to stop the game and ask the "super sports Dad" if he'd like to come down and take the whistle from me and give it a go. Of course I didn't have the guts to do it. But if I would have had one of these it would have made all the difference.

Unreal Golf Shot

Latest ESPN Commercial

Funny. If you don't know who Rickie Fowler is, click here.

The Future of the NFL in One Simple Picture

Play of the Day

Humbling.

The Story of One of the Worst Sports Injuries of All Time

ESPN:

The latest film is Cutthroat, by award-winning director Steven Cantor. Clint Malarchuk was famous for being an NHL goalie, but he would go down in hockey history for suffering one of the most gruesome injuries in the history of sports when an opposing player's skate severed his carotid artery. This story covers Malarchuk's miraculous physical recovery from the injury as well as the long and grueling emotional recuperation that took two decades and included an eventual stay in a mental hospital for PTSD treatment. [Warning: This film contains graphic footage of the injury.]

(RSS viewers, click through to view.)

John Tuggle - An NFL Story You Haven't Heard Before

Powerful. (RSS click through to view.)

This is Why This Guy Gets Paid The Big Bucks in The Major Leagues

The Greatest Golf Course Transportation To Date

Amazing.  Forget golf.  Just get me one of these for the backyard!

Are Sports a New Religion?

David Briggs:

The Rev. Stephen Fichter understood just how dominant a role sports has assumed in the culture when a family told him they would be out of town Good Friday to Easter Sunday to attend their child’s volleyball tournament.

“It’s truly sports that has become like the religion” for many people, said Fichter, a researcher and the pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Haworth, N.J.

From youth travel teams to big-time national festivals such as the Final Four, sports have been making increasing inroads in the busy lives of many Americans. Some scholars even trace the evolution of sports from pastime to a form of civil religion to now having become almost a folk religion.

And it is having an impact on religious groups, which report increasing difficulty convincing families that are willing to spend half a day traveling to a 9-year-old’s softball or soccer game to make time for worship services.

Read the rest.

(HT: Chris Brauns)

Jim Rome's take on NCAA Bracket Guy

In light of the kickoff of March Madness, this Jim Rome blurb is wholly appropriate and will give you a good laugh.

100 Greatest Sports Photos

See them all here.  

Jay Cutler and Concussions in the NFL

Former elite gymnast, Timothy Dalrymple, gives his take on the issue. Here is his conclusion:

Growing up in the gymnastics world, I cannot tell you how many times I heard the stories of gymnastics legends who suffered injuries and persevered in the competition. And I get it. Athletic competition is about striving to overcome your physical limitations, striving to overcome all challenges and achieve greatness. No one forces these football players to play. And they’re paid handsomely.

But a distinction needs to be made between passing injuries to the extremities — sprained ankles, broken wrists, torn tendons, hyper-extended knees, and the like, the vast majority of which will heal and be forgotten — and injuries to the spine and the head, which can have devastating lifelong consequences. At its worst, sports culture makes no distinction (as my coach told me after I broke my neck, “We all break bones now and then”) and even encourages a kind of scorn for the body and its welfare. The athlete — again, when sports culture is at its worst — refines and hones and trains the body, and yet treats it with scorn, as something that must submit to the power of the athlete’s mind and will.

If we the viewers do not press the NFL to make meaningful changes, the changes probably will not come. Football culture is powerfully masculine, a modern gladiatorial arena celebrating harnessed aggression and controlled violence. Many morally thoughtful people are fans of football. They need to recognize that young men, many of whom know no better and have no better options, are sacrificing their lifelong health for the roar of the arena. Young men — many of them young black men from poor families — should not have to destroy themselves, inviting injuries that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, for our viewing entertainment.

Read the rest.

The Golfer, the Leaf, and a Crisis of Conscience

Some things are more important than money. Great story here.

Fun New Blake Griffin Commercial