Has the National Football League become Too Violent?

Comparisons of modern-day professional football to what is now considered the barbaric practice of the Roman gladiators illuminate several issues plaguing America's favorite sport. Granted, players for the National Football League (NFL) are paid athletes and not slaves as were their gladiator predecessors, but there are distinct parallels between the two that should not be ignored. Foremost among these similarities is the issue of violence. While it is easy to see the blatant violence of the gladiator spectator sport (i.e. the participants "played" to the death), there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the NFL has likewise become too violent for its own good. Moreover, accounting for Frontline's groundbreaking exposé on the NFL's concussion and post-concussive syndrome crisis, as well as the experiences of several well-known players, the League is not too far removed from that distinguishing element of brutality in fighting to one's death.

Violence in the NFL takes many forms, from the violent crimes in which players are continuously implicated, to the on-the-field violence that many consider makes the sport - the sport (Coakley 195). Drawing from observations of ancient Rome and its athletic superstars (gladiators), this paper will focus on the violence players endure during games using three major sources of evidence to demonstrate that the NFL is indeed, too violent: (1) the current concussion controversy, (2) professional players' personal stories, and (3) the game's very own rule changes meant to compensate for its inherent violence. All things considered, the NFL will need to adjust its view on violence in order for it to avoid the brutish reputation that is attached to the Roman gladiator tradition.

Much like the bloodthirst that drove the Roman Empire's limitless power, America's obsession with football has turned the NFL into the richest, most powerful sports league in the nation (Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru 5). This power seems to have gone to the NFL's head, quite literally. Unsurprisingly, scientific evidence demonstrates that frequent, repetitive blows to the head sustained by NFL players on a regular basis are linked to a chronic brain disease that has been plaguing football professionals for decades (Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru 11). This connection between football and brain damage is a damning example of the sport's inherent brutal tendencies and a red flag concerning the NFL's superfluous violence.

What's more, the NFL's strategy to cover up these facts is concerning, to say the least. Efforts to conceal such information are congruous to that of another powerful industry–the tobacco industry, which responded to limits on its own viability by underwriting questionable science through the creation of its own scientific research and attempting to silence anyone contradicting it (Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru 6). In a serious journalistic investigation on the NFL's handling of the concussion issue, evidence shows that the League did its best to suppress decades of evidence linking chronic brain sports injuries to football's violent tendencies, and in doing so, cost the League $765 million in a class action settlement with over 4,000 former players (PBS).

Subsequently, this concussion crisis is becoming a serious public health issue, particularly considering that playing football often begins at an early age. According to one study, about 15 percent of high school football players experience a brain injury each season (Ripley). This is an astonishingly high number and one that indicates this issue needs more attention. As Joe Maroon, a longtime neurological consultant for the Pittsburgh Steelers has stated, "If ten percent of mothers in America begin to conceive football as dangerous, that is the end of football," (Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru 137).

While the end of football seems far off (if it exists at all), there are serious arguments to be made for changing the violence within the sport, even coming from those players who have benefitted most from football fandom. Steve Young, football Hall-of-Famer and NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, sustained seven concussions before retiring from the game in 1999 (PBS). Furthermore, in an interview with Frontline's Jim Gilmore, he stated that he "really worr[ies] about [his] lineman brothers" and that he was unsure if he would let his son play linebacker (PBS).

However, Steve Young's mere hesitation regarding linemen means he fared better than Mike Webster, also known as "Iron Mike" and center for the NFL with Pittsburgh's infamous "Steel Curtain" football team. Unfortunately, Iron Mike is the poster-child for warnings against excessive violence in the NFL as it was his brain that launched the research into the connection between football and chronic brain injury (Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru 6). Iron Mike died at the age of 50 after a heart attack. However, after an autopsy of his brain, it was revealed that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition in which healthy brain cells are eventually overwhelmed by proteins formed around direct injury to areas of the brain. Omalu, Webster's coroner, described his brain as that of "boxers' like Muhammed Ali, very old people with Alzheimer's disease or someone who had suffered a severe head wound" (Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru 133).

Finally, even if the comparisons to gladiators seem a bit overdramatic, one cannot ignore the very evolution of the rules of the game as an indication of the excessive violence on the field. In fact, the game's tendency towards violence has progressed more quickly than the official rules and their enforcement have (Hauge 30). For example, despite the NFL's initial inception in 1876, it took 67 years for the League to mandate that players wear helmets. Furthermore, in order to address the increased likelihood of violence and injury attached to changes in the game designed to increase the tempo and intensity of the game, from 1979 to 1980, the NFL added a variety of regulations designed to protect players (Hauge 31). These changes included prohibiting dangerous forms of blocking, restricting contact to the head, neck, and face, and introducing the "personal foul" in order to hinder players from directly striking an opponent.

Changes did not stop there just as violence within the sport did not end either. Following the NFL's growing awareness of the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that led to players becoming stronger, faster, and more violent, safety-related rule changes roughly quadrupled in 2010 than existed in the two decades prior (Hauge 31). This is an enormously disturbing statistic that serves as empirical evidence of the excessive violence of the sport. If football's own standards account for curbing the growing violence of the sport, it makes arguing its non-violence seems obsolete.

Yet, despite all the evidence of extreme violence in the sport, football is still a staple on Sunday schedules in households across the country. Moreover, the inherent violence of the sport does not seem to deter this tradition. In fact, in 2010, the NFL grossed just under what the entire United States’ movie industry did by generating over $400 billion in gross revenues (Jewell, Moti and Dennis 11), indicating that the sport's entertainment value is unrivaled. Recently, Leonard Shapiro, a retired sportswriter for The Washington Post, wrote a piece on how writers and readers alike have "glossed over the brutality of the sport [football]" and stated, "[s]hame on us" (Shapiro 1). It seems he has a valid point. Fans' complacency with football's violence is akin to that of ancient Rome and its acceptance, if not wanton desire, of death among gladiators.

From the perspective of an economist, violence in sports is an outcome of the forces of supply and demand, and violence and aggression exist because fans respond positively to these forces (Jewell 4). This means that controlling the violence inherent in football is as much a responsibility of the League as it is of its fans. Do fans really want idealized football players to sustain long-term brain injury for the fun of it? Answering this question positively or even allowing for continued ignorance on the subject of serious injury due to football's violence does not bode well for American society as a whole (Coakley 197), particularly as links between brain damage and the sport become clearer.

In conclusion, just as the social phenomena of the gladiator sport have been seen as too barbaric, the NFL has likewise institutionalized violence and this must be accounted for. Public campaign efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of brain damage and playing football are needed. The violence and aggression present in modern-day football are eerily similar to the violence and aggression in that of ancient sports. It would not be surprising if future generations looked back at violence in the NFL much like society today looks back at the violence in ancient Rome and came to the very same conclusion: it is too violent. In order to avoid the hypocrisy of calling ancient Roman sports barbaric while at the same time enjoying Fantasy Football three times a week, it is important that the NFL and fans alike tackle the violence issue head-on, no puns intended.

Works Cited

Coakley, Jay. Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.

Fainaru-Wada, Mark and Fainaru, Steve. League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for the Truth. New York: Random House LLC, 2013. Print.

Hauge, Janice A. "Incentive for Aggression in American Football." Violence and Aggression in Sporting Contests. Ed. Todd R. Jewell. New York: Springer Science, 2011. 29–46. Print.

Jewell, Todd R. "Violence and Aggression in Spectator Sports: A Prologue." Violence and Aggression in Sporting Contests. Ed. Todd R. Jewell. New York: Springer Science, 2011. 1–10. Print.

Jewell, Todd R., Moti, Afsheen and Coates, Dennis. "A Brief History of Violence in and Aggression in Spectator Sports." Violence and Aggression in Sporting Contests. Ed. Todd R. Jewell. New York: Springer Science, 2011. 11–26. Print.

"League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis." Frontline. PBS. WGBH Educational Foundation, Arlington. 8 Oct. 2013. Television.

Ripley, Amanda. "The Case Against High-School Sports." The Atlantic. 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Rosenthal, Gregg. "Aaron Hernandez Indicated in Murder Charge." Around the League, ESPN. 22 Aug. 2013. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Shapiro, Leonard. "For Too Long, Sports Journalists Glossed Over Football's Violence. I was One of Them." The Washington Post. 18 Oct. 2013. Print.