More on football

A few days ago I posted a note on here about football, how the game just seems too violent. While I got one comment which registered a dissent, a day or two ago I saw a news bulletin which, to me, pointed out just how bad it is. It seems that Troy Aikman, a former player in the National Football League, was quoted as saying that it was a bad idea to increase the NFL season to 18 games. Now think of it! An NFL season is all of sixteen games long! Major League Baseball teams play a season of 162 games — more than ten times that number. The major leagues in basketball and hockey have seasons only about half as long (in number of games) as MLB, but even so, that's about five times as many as the NFL. And here you have a former star in the NFL saying that this is enough. Obviously, football takes too much out of its players.

I looked up a bit more about Troy Aikman — not being a fan of the game, I don't know much about him. It seems he'd had 10 concussions before retiring from the “sport” — and he was quoted, not so recently, as saying: “Football Has Gotten So Dangerous I Wouldn't Even Let My Kid Play The Game.” Even then, over a year ago, he was condemning the plan to increase the season from 16 to 18 games, but the quote in question damns the “sport” even more — he was considered a “star” — the post in question uses that term to describe him — and he calls the “sport” so dangerous he wouldn't let his own son play it.