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An Analysis Of Steve Almond's Is It Immoral To Watch The Super Bowl

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Athletic injuries have never been a big deal in our culture. They are often dismissed with the famous argument of choice. They chose to play the sport, they are to be held responsible if injured because of it. This is a statement that our society as a majority full-heartedly agrees with, but is something that Steve Almond questions in his article “Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?”. In his article Steve impartially argues about the moral ambiguity of watching the Super Bowl and how our adoration of the game has led us away from the thought that football is harmful. I am conflicted about Almond’s solution, but I full-heartedly agree with Almond’s argument about the how sports injuries are a problem in professional football. In the article, to help his claim in the matter, Almond first shares with us his own experience watching football. He talks about his memory of a England Patriot being tackled by an Oakland Raider and how he was proud. Almond slowly lost his pride and became shameful when Stingley didn’t movel. As he informs us about the receiver's situation, Almond plugs in the fact about how NFL was unaffected by the player being hurt. Almond goes on to talk about how much the NFL has been unaffected by sports injuries and how although he …show more content…

In the same article written by Jason M. Breslow, he shows how uncaring the NFL is being, “In at least 86 instances during 2012, a player returned from his concussion without missing a game. In 2013, it happened 74 times. 49.5% of players never missed a game after a concussion.”. The NFL doesn’t care about the wellbeing of its players, they only care about the money they make from them. As long as the player says the almighty words of “I’m okay”, then they are allowed back in the game. Although there are rules and regulations towards injuries that the NFL has to abide towards, the organization tries to do the bare

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It wasn’t until President Theodore Roosevelt’s son got injured in the game that he enforced a football reform. Almond relays the message that Football is a prime example of American innovation at it’s best. He claims that overtime, Football transformed from a deadly sport that had no organization to “controlled violence.” Almond believes that this reform is beautiful in nature which I have to disagree with. Although broken arms, ribs and pulled ligaments can be painful, they can be effectively treated by doctors this day in age.

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Daniel Goldberg wrote in his essay "Concussions, Professional Sports, And Conflicts Of Interest: Why The National Football League’s Current Policies Are Bad For Its (Players’) Health” about how players' brains are affected by these injuries, but since the NFL’s policy was more relaxed players were sometimes forced to go back into the game even though they were injured. Goldberg brought up in one claim that since the NFL had no set process dealing with concussions there was no limit for when player’s could return to action, and since that was true NFL coaches would rather have their players out on the field rather than letting them sit out and fully recover from the damage due to the impact that they can have on the game. (pg 4, paragraph 3 and 4) Effects of this could be seen in Ted Johnson’s case (pg 4-5) where he suffered numerous concussions when he was forced to participate in games and full contact practices before being fully healed due to the lack of regulations on concussions. And before the previously mentioned claim, Goldberg brought up the case of former player Mike Webster.

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