Is it time to turn off football?

Unless you've been living in a cave the last few days, you know that an American pro football player was seriously injured early in Monday night's game. His heart stopped after he put what seemed to be a routine hit on another player, and the medics were frantically applying CPR as the ambulance drove the lifeless guy to the intensive care unit at the local hospital. At last report, he was still there, in critical condition and on a ventilator.

The game, between the visiting Buffalo Bills and the hosting Cincinnati Bengals, was an important one in deciding where various teams stand in the playoffs that begin on the 15th. The Bills and the Bengals are among the league's best. But last night it was announced that the game, so highly anticipated before it was suspended in light of the injury, has been declared null and void. The league's owners are talking today about how to determine where everybody stands in light of the cancellation.

As readers here know, I follow football closely. In fact, I give that sport more attention than any other, with tennis a close second. But for a while now, I've been wondering whether watching football is immoral. I gave up looking at boxing years ago, and the other gruesome forms of fighting that are allowed these days are obviously out of the question. Maybe I need to put football in the same category, rather than participating as a spectator in its barbarity, not to mention its overwhelming commercialism.

Now, I know that what happened on Monday night to Damar Hamlin may have been a fluke thing. Cardiac arrest has been known to happen when someone gets hit in the chest in any sport. Kids have died of "commotio cordis" after being struck in the wrong spot, at the wrong nanosecond, by a baseball or lacrosse ball. 

But that's not what really casts the pall over football. Nowadays we all know that as a routine matter, football players suffer brain damage, and later in life their minds are so far gone that they die prematurely, even by suicide. While the drama of Damar Hamlin plays out in the media and in the hearts of gridiron fans, the real problem is the harm to the gray matter that is inherent in "tackle" football.

Earlier this season, a star quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, sustained a couple of concussions in a row, and despite all the league's posturing on the subject of player safety, he's still going out there taking a beating just about every Sunday. You can't tell me he's not going to pay dearly for that someday.

When a player goes down with a serious injury, there comes a point at which the announcers solemnly tell us that "he's moving his hands and his feet, and that's a good sign." That was last night with Hamlin. So let's get back to the action, and the commercials. God forgive us.

Most of the Big Daddies of pro football are risking their lives strictly for money – the big money that's generated when we watch the spectacle on TV for our amusement. The cycle starts in high school. And with even college players now able to be paid for playing, the temptation of the dough-re-mi is getting ever worse. We don't allow minors to smoke or drink, but somehow they are considered mature enough to make decisions that could ruin their health, and all in the name of mass entertainment. Not to mention the recent phenomenon of legalized gambling, which puts an extra coat of sleaze on all the proceedings. 

Maybe this week should be the last straw.

Can I live without football? It would be extremely difficult, but maybe it's time to bite the bullet and at least try. I've got too much invested in this season, but maybe I could go cold turkey starting the day after the Super Bowl. No football for a whole year. It's worth considering over the next seven months.

I could still tailgate.