118 thoughts on “November 7, 2013: The Weight”

  1. He played for the Cowboys and I hated the Cowboys because, Vikings, but I admit to having a soft spot for Tony Dorsett. I once stood next to him in a Pittsburgh hotel. I didn't bother him because what was I going to say? I just realized that I was standing next to a Heisman Trophy winner and one of the greatest running backs of all time. And now, he's living with a scrambled brain. Man.

    "I've thought about crazy stuff, sort of like, 'Why do I need to continue going through this?'" he said. "I'm too smart of a person, I like to think, to take my life, but it's crossed my mind."

    CTE is a disease with no known cure, but Dorsett said he was seeking answers to explain his cognitive and emotional difficulties.

    "I want to know if this is something that has come about because of playing football," he said.

    Dorsett's 12-year playing career ended a quarter-century ago. He said he doesn't know how many concussions he suffered, but that they were numerous and he believes their consequences are, too.

    "My quality of living has changed drastically and it deteriorates every day," he said.

    1. I used to think all these "death of football" stories were hyperbole. Now I'm not so sure. Between this and the Incognito story, I think the NFL could be in some serious trouble. It'll be interesting to see how a league that thinks of itself as pretty much untouchable reacts to all this.

        1. That brings up another aspect of the Incognito story, which is the "circle the wagons" approach organizations tend to take when they're in trouble. I'm sure there's a certain segment of NFL fans who buy into the "blame the victim" line a lot of the NFL seems to be taking, but I question how well that's playing with the general public.

            1. Indeed. Isn't circling the wagons something that's done when there aren't any other options? I've been saying about 15 years for the NFL before its basically boxing, if not gone altogether. That stadium is going to look awfully stupid then.

          2. Don't forget that there are opinion shapers out there who start campaigns about professional athletes questioning their toughness. #playyousissies

            Also, how many times have we heard players complaining about any attempt to legislate safer play? They will complain until they are out of the league and in Dorsett's position. And still a lot of them will say, I wouldn't change a thing. Well, what can we say about that?

            I think long term, though, the NFL will fade in popularity. We're not there yet.

            1. You're probably right. Still, sometimes things can change with an amazing swiftness. I don't really think the NFL is about to crash and burn, but I now think it's at least a possibility.

              1. I was alternately flabbergasted and gratified watching the clips of various players in the league last night reacting to the Martin/Incognito story. At least some of Martin's Stanford teammates are standing up for him against this sudden onslaught from Miami players.

                In no other industry would (or should) the kind of behavior exhibited by Incognito be tolerated in the workplace.

                Jim Harbaugh had a great quote yesterday.

                The 49ers have a long-standing policy against rookie hazing that dates back to when Bill Walsh was the head coach. Harbaugh said that policy is "well-discussed" and "well-understood" by the players, but he declined to talk about it Wednesday.

                "I don't think it's the forum for that type of discussion," he said. "But bring it up to me at some point when it's not related to this story. Anything else is hearsay on my part. If you want hearsay, just tune into ESPN. They roll it in all day long."

                also note that the 49ers -- one of the league's model franchises -- has long had a strong anti-hazing policy. Traditional, mean-spirited hazing is a destructive cultural practice. It has no place in a civilized society, and adds nothing positive to the success of an organization. Anyone who suggests otherwise is fooling himself.

                  1. The Navy was full of anti-hazing policies...for me, all they prevented were hazing practices that left permanent proof of the hazing.

                    2. Shellback ceremony, Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist pinning, fresh fish onboard the Spru-Can, E3-E4/E4-E5/E5-E6 pinning...basically any advancement or significant qualification was cause for "celebration" or "fraternal induction". Again, nothing more serious than some embarrassment, ego-adjustment and bruises for me. I thought it was stupid but harmless...had I been involved in an actual pinning, I'd have thought otherwise.

                2. In no other industry would (or should) the kind of behavior exhibited by Incognito be tolerated in the workplace.

                  I don't know, bS. I know people who have worked on Wall Street who would contest that statement.

              1. Reading Reusse's subsequent half-assed justification is hilarious. He claims that he didn't actually mean to say that Mauer was a sissy for not playing through a concussion, he just meant that Mauer was the poster boy for a poor work ethic. This, despite the fact that Mauer played through an injury during the end of the 2010 season, which resulted in off-season surgery, and subsequently wiped out a chunk of his 2011 season. In 2012, he played a career high number of games. In 2013, he was on pace to play a new career high number of games until he was sidelined by a concussion.

                It was then that Reusse called Mauer the "poster boy" for his theory. But, he didn't mean it about the concussion, without which of course, Mauer would have played a career high number of games. LOL.

                This from a guy who has spent over 40 years communicating to the masses via the written word. Even if you take him at his word, his argument is nonsensical.

        2. sweet jesus. I just typed out a, "if you had made that bet ... " and quickly realized that likely none of us would have made that bet (with our wives). Having lived in W. Texas I can't see an end to football, and living in Saints Town confirms the continued existence of the game. People have always longed to see the gladiators fight, common sense and science be damned.

          2. We expect our sons to be physically tough. We don't put the same expectations on our daughters. Daughters are to be nurtured, sons are to be steeled. How's that working out?

            Increasingly as a society, we see our daughters catching and surpassing our sons in achievement. More college degrees, more professional degrees, our daughters are taking over.

            I have a daughter and no son. I'm very happy that she will have opportunities that women of previous generations never had. As a society, though, we are doing a great disservice to our young men. We shall reap what we sow in that regard.

      2. We still have boxing, so the NFL will be around awhile. I'm wondering about youth and even high school football. That will be in trouble first. Of course, the NFL will probably start losing its place atop the American sports pedestal, too.

        1. It's true that we still have boxing, but years ago boxing was a Big Deal, as popular as any other sport you want to mention. Now, it's an afterthought.

          1. replaced largely by MMA, it seems. MMA may be marginally safer for the long-term brain health of its athletes. May. But still gladiatorial.

    2. Last night's NOVA, on making things safer, had a piece on head trauma in football. The studies in the clip showed the brain affected from repeated hits -- not just concussions. The damage reversed over time (when not playing) but still was measurable.

    3. man, I loved Tony Dorsett when he was at Pitt. As a Cowboy, well, Vikings. So not so much. But, yea, this is unhappy news about him.

        1. Yeah. I decided I wasn't going to get anything done if I didn't close the tab. I'll be checking them all out tonight while watching the Vikings game.

          1. Just never turn on the Vikings game.
            Bois is the best. As I said a few weeks ago, "Every morning a brand-new internet is created for the world. On a good number of those days, Jon Bois shares something on it which wins that brand-new internet just for him." Or something to that effect.

            I can't imagine how much effort goes into these breaking-Madden things. Good to know he's getting paid for it.
            #ThisIsWhyTheresNoMoreMugshotPurgatory

      1. Just so we're clear, the UCL, which Sano has injured, actually is the ligament that is replaced through TJ surgery. I have confidence, though that the rest and rehab will work. #noconfidence

        1. Oh yeah, I know. I also have no trust in anything any MN sports team's training department says, so I'm with you there. I kind of wonder if maybe I should start rooting for teams around where I live instead.

    2. If not for the Twins' history, I wouldn't be worried at all since it's a strain and not a partial tear. Position players can play with a slight tear more than pitchers can, so even if a small tear was missed, he could most likely play with it without too much problem.

      1. The problem with even a slight tear is that it will often continue to fray and deteriorate over time.

        1. Yes, but at the most he will lose one season and will be fine after that with only a slight possibility of him having to be relegated to first base or DH. It's still not close to being as significant as it would be for a pitcher. If it was an ACL, I'd be a lot more worried about it.

  4. Just about finished with the new recent comments plugin. Hopefully the caching works better and comments won't temporarily be lost. Still working on the styling.

  5. Saw this over on CH today regarding the Wolves without Love and Martin on the court:

    The Wolves have played basically an entire game’s worth of minutes (49.6) with both Love and Martin on the bench.

    Here’s the rundown with Wolves/Opp:

    Pts: 56/97 (!!!)

    Reb: 39/59 (!!!)

    FG%: .297/.404 (!!!)

    3p%: .105/.269 (!!!)

    I believe bS mentioned it last night, but the Wolves need Bud healthy in the worst way and should have maybe kept that #9 pick and used it on someone who can actually play.

    1. yep, yep and yep.

      the extraordinary things are those FG pcts. Neither Love nor (especially) Martin is known as a defensive stopper. How many of those rebounds are ORB?

    2. So, any discussion about overpaying Martin should be laughed off because his salary isn't the problem. Also, Love isn't that bad of a defender. But hey, when you can trade down to get Shabazz, you have to do it.

        1. Ricky so far, at least from what I've seen even in the wins, has looked.. discouraged. Maybe its because of the shooting, but I hope he finds the joy in the game he clearly had in years past. Also, someone should probably discuss Jason Kidd's career arc (but not his domestic arc) with him, at length, to get him to worry less about it.

          1. another relevant comp is Rondo, I think. Rondo is a terrible 3pt shooter, but he gets to the rim a lot. The extraordinary thing is that he's a horrible FT shooter. Why do teams ever let him shoot layups? Hack him!

            Rondo's career TS% is .514. Ricky's is .476. If Ricky could just get his 2pt pct up to 40, he'd be golden.

    1. I feel like players should probably stop commenting on the situation. Everything I've read and heard from players, current or former, is basically "Martin is a pussy and deserved it" and "that's how all rookies are treated so he should shut up and quit being a pussy."

      I mean, this guy starts his article saying that Martin wasn't the most social guy and for that, he totally got what was coming but then blasts him for going to the media when I think its been pretty well established that there wasn't anyone within the Dolphins organization he thought he could trust to discuss it with because its against the brotherhood code, or whatever.... the brotherhood that rejected him.

    2. That voicemail he sent came from a place of humor, but where he really screwed up was using the N-word.

      This seems to be a common theme of Incognito backers--he's not a racist. Okay, let's say he's not a racist, I really don't know. Is everyone really comfortable with the rest of his message if we edit out the racist bit?

      "Hey, wassup, you piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."

      Hilarious, right? I suppose Incognito hasn't committed any felonies yet, so he's not really in the top tier of NFL bad guys, but he has plenty of strikes against him even if this Martin business is overblown. (Which it seems to me it probably isn't, but I can't claim to absolutely know the whole story.)

    3. so, did Lydon Murtha learn those values growing up in Hutchinson, in college at Nebraska, or in the NFL (or all of the above)?

    4. Lydon Murtha was a college teammate of Incognito and a tackle who was cut the year Martin, a tackle, made the team. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

    5. All good points. I guess the most interesting part for me was this:

      "Incognito was made a scapegoat for the hell coming down on the Dolphins organization, which in turn said it knew nothing about any so-called hazing. That’s the most outlandish lie of this whole thing. The coaches know everything. The coaches know who’s getting picked on and in many cases call for that player to be singled out. Any type of denial on that side is ridiculous."

      Maybe Incognito's a bully. Maybe it is the code. But if Incognito was just doing what he was told to do and now he's being punished for doing what he was told to do, that's BS. I hope the Dolphins don't just get away with throwing Incognito under the bus and three mea culpas.

      What we really need is for Tom Cruise to ride in and get to the bottome of this.

      1. Downey Incognito: Colonel Jessup Joe Philbin said he ordered the Code Red! What did we do wrong?

    4. Two things come to mind

      1) "Holy f****ing sh!t, that's one helluva f****ng storm!"

      2) How cool is it we have the technology to have these pictures taken and then transmitted around the world? And in essentially real-time.

  8. Rest? Bah. #playyousissies

    2. AFL has another week of games even if Buxton was healthy and I don't think Buxton will play anymore winter ball, so that gives him until mid-February to rest. I don't think he'll be worn out.

    4. Arcia is 3-for-21. I guess in a narrow sense that's "slumping", but that's a super small sample size (SSSS). I'd guess there won't be twenty guys in the majors who don't go 3-for-21 at some point this season.

    2. Four of six, I'll have to hunt down the Bent Paddle and Steel Toe. Grain Belt Premium has been my #1 session beer for more than a decade.

  10. So, 600 HRs, 600 Steals, 15 Gold Gloves... and

    'Spoiler' SelectShow

      1. I don't know who that winner is at all, but I do think it'd be nice if b-r.com listed Save Opportunities or Holds or Blown Saves. It's useful to figure out why votes like that happened so near-unanimously.

        bWAR looks like a virtual 4-way tie for first, with another guy starting 29 games and getting a 3.92 ERA and a 12-12 record with only one full arm.

        I probably would have supported Tom Gordon.

          1. I was being facetious. "Jim Abbott" is pretty well known hereabouts*.
            Kind of like "Earl Battey would be the best Twins catcher ever except for some other guy from St. Paul."

            *a/k/a inside my head.

    1. For the third time today, OMG. Stay Classy, New Mexico.

      Also, holy shit. (you're welcome andrew)

  12. I was going to say something to the effect of "only the Redskins could make Ponder look good." But that last possession, not so much.

  14. THURSDAY PHOOTBAWL!

    Andrew Krammer ‏@Andrew_Krammer
    The #Vikings only dressed 44 guys, had nine out and could only put seven on inactives. Two were active and in street clothes.

    plus Ponder got injured

    crazy

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