Recognizing The Culture Of Violence In The NFL
The Red Queen
In evolutionary biology, there’s a concept called the Red Queen Hypothesis. Simply put, it states that groups in a system have to evolve just to keep up with the other components of the system. If not, they irrevocably fall behind. Taken from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, one of the Red Queen’s speeches mentions “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
The NFL finds itself in a similar evolutionary situation: players are getting bigger, faster, and stronger at a blistering pace, while rules, player mentalities, and equipment all lag, in some cases, decades behind. All the while, players continue to take injuries which are career and life-threatening that often go untreated and undiagnosed simply because of the culture that exists in the NFL. With an incontrovertible pile of evidence mounting — from decreased NFL player lifespan to irreversible head injuries — will we see the NFL as a tragically barbaric testament to disregard for player safety in the pursuit of profit?
