Why Phillies Fans Are Barbarians
āDad, can I run on the field?ā the soon-to-be Tasered 17 year old son asked.
āI donāt think you should, son,ā the dad replied.
āThis would be a once in a lifetime experience.ā
He blamed God. āI PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!ā Buffalo Bills wide-receiver Stevie Johnson tweeted after dropping the game-winning TD pass, āYOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THOā¦ā
Maybe itās the wrath of the Heavenly Father. More likely its Buffaloās porous offensive line. But the Bills are 4-10. Johnsonās tweet was another ill-advised CāMON MAN! in an NFL year full of them. Portly defensive end Albert Haynesworth let himself go, for starters. OchoCinco guaranteed the Bengals would reach the Super Bowl. Dallas quarterback Jon Kitna ātriedā to do The Dougie dance. And the Redskins feted Donovan McNabb with a 5 year/$70 million contract. Three weeks later, McNabb lost his job to Rex Grossman and is the highest paid third-string quarterback in NFL history. But the worst decision of all may have been Brett Favreās choice to return for a 20th NFL season.
The Big Three. The Triple Threeat. An unfair NBA monopoly. Whatever you call them, Lebron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade made waves (okay, tsunamis) this past summer when they announced that they all would be signing with the Miami Heat. And the months following Bosh’s tweet and Lebron’s Decision (insert derisive snort here) were filled with speculation, predictions, and anticipation. Basketball fans, outside of Cleveland, were crowing about the new NBA dynasty. Hell, James, Bosh and Wade practically accepted the 2011 NBA championship trophy back in August.
And then the season started.
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Put your thinking caps on, because itās time for a quiz. Which one of these situations can result in a technical foul during an NBA game:
A. Kobe Bryant, in frustration, bounces the ball with extra force after being called for a blocking foul, resulting in the ball accidentally bouncing into the second row of seats
B. Dwight Howard gets tangled up with a defender and throws an elbow into his opponent’s chin to ācreate separationā
C. Lebron James gets called for a questionable charge, and deals with his disappointment by grimacing and jogging away from the referee
The Red Queen
In evolutionary biology, thereās 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 Carrollās Through the Looking Glass, one of the Red Queenās speeches mentions āit takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.ā
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?
