With all the talk about the possibility that the great Peyton Manning might become a Denver Bronco, another recent football story was largely ignored.
We’re talking about the allegation that former New Orleans Saints’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams offered his players “bounties” for causing injuries to opposing players — $1,500 for a “knockout” and $1,000 for a “cart-off” — during the 2009 playoffs.
The National Football League is investigating. It must mete out whatever discipline is required. Meanwhile, a few thoughts.
It cannot be denied that football is, at its core, a violent and intense sport. It involves large, strong and well-trained athletes colliding, usually at high speeds, on a regular basis. Injuries are common, of course — just ask Peyton Manning or any other NFL starter.
Those athletes who prefer less violent competition can choose volleyball, baseball, soccer, even basketball, where the contact, and the risk of broken bones and other bodily injury, is considerably lighter.
So we can all agree that football is a violent sport. Take away the violent contact and it wouldn’t be football anymore. Love it or hate it, that’s fundamental to what football is.
But bounties?
Over and above the images such a practice conjures in the mind — Western lawmen seeking to take down outlaws dead or alive, Roman gladiators fighting to the death — bounties are a seriously bad idea.
Especially in football, where injuries are already common and often serious, the idea of offering financial rewards for intentionally causing injuries is idiotic, not to mention malicious — terrible sportsmanship.
Beyond some of the players who might stand to profit from such bounties, who wants this?
Not the players. They’re the ones going to the hospital because of it. Not the owners. They invest millions in their rosters, and don’t want to lose more money to injuries than they already do.
And the fans? Except for the most barbaric among them, fans realize that sports are supposed to be exciting and fun, not the sort of bloody spectacle that the ancients once indulged in.
All sports, including football, must have rules and guidelines to keep the competition fair and prevent it from descending into mindless chaos. Even boxing, a sport in which causing injury to one’s opponent is actually intended, has restrictions and rules.
Which is the central point. Just as the NFL restricts the ways in which one player can hit or tackle another, NFL rules ban such bounties, precisely because they encourage the intent to cause injuries.
Bounties should be decisively nipped in the bud, not only to protect the players who might be injured, but to protect the very sport of football itself.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
