Dogs vs. linebackers
Filed Under Dale Cooper, Sports
This isn’t one of those stoned-guy time-wasting questions, like how many five year olds would it take to beat up a grown man (answer: 35, unless the grown man is enfeebled or missing a hand or something). This is the premise of Malcolm Gladwell’s piece for the New Yorker. The argument goes something like this: we get real mad about dogfighting because the dogs are seriously injured or killed while playing. We should maybe get just as mad about football, because the football players are damaging their brains, it looks like.
You should follow that link and read the piece, because A. there’s a lot of good information there; and B. I don’t intend to break it all down in this space. The article runs 8 pages but in Gladwellian fashion it’s a bit thought-provoking and well-written. You’ll breeze through it, trust me. At the end, though, you may find yourself pondering a few questions like I did:
1. Doesn’t it make a difference that fighting dogs are almost invariably killed in their “sport” – if not in training, then in the first fight, or the second, or the tenth – and football players are almost never killed in this way? There is evidence about how the game wrecks their bodies and shortens their lives, and possibly worse; and yet I have a hard time seeing football as a true bloodsport, since serious injury and death are not the objective, or even a routine hazard. Gladwell doesn’t touch on this.
2. Isn’t it too convenient for his story that he is putting football in a dichotomy where it probably doesn’t fit? The Edge of the American West asks this, and suggests that a comparison between the NFL and NASCAR (with their similar risk to life and limb, and resultant safety regulations) would have been superior to Gladwell’s false black-and-white choice, “Is [football] dogfighting or is it stock-car racing.” Are tomatoes fruit or are they poison?
3. Most importantly, doesn’t he have an obligation to address the fact that football players choose their sport and the length of their careers, while dogs do not? If one is to make this comparison at all (and I’m not sure I’d choose to), it’s necessary to underscore that fighting dogs don’t have a choice; NFL players do. There is a lot of social and fiscal pressure, and a (perhaps intentional) wall of misinformation about the risks, that may lead players to make a bad choice; nonetheless, a choice is being made. Vick’s pit bulls couldn’t spontaneously retire and become accountants. That’s important.
In any event, I still suggest giving the thing a read, because despite Gladwell’s tailoring of the information to fit an argument that is DOA, the information itself is worth your time. The NFL may need to step up its rule changes and equipment design to lessen this problem. We may, as consumers and sports fans, want to press them to do it. It’s just too bad that one of the first major shots fired was aimed at the ground. Malcolm Gladwell is capable of better, and the issue deserves it.
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[...] Gladwell’s take on this material was not to my liking, so I’m glad that someone (ESPN Page 2’s Tim Keown) is taking a more direct tack. It [...]