The NFL’s Great Failure
The New England Patriots have won in their sixth title in 20 years. Some hail this accomplishment as a testament to their unending dominance, to their great defensive performance, or to the ageless Tom Brady. New Orleans, however, knows the real story: “D. Brees pass incomplete short right to T. Lewis”, the official play marking the worst officiating mistake in NFL history. With 1:48 left in the NFC championship game, New Orleans Saints wide receiver Tommylee Lewis faced a blatant pass interference penalty from LA Rams defender Nickell Robey-Coleman. A penalty would have extended the amount of time the Saints possessed the ball and would likely have advanced them to the Super Bowl.[su_pullquote align=”right”]The New England Patriots have won in their sixth title in 20 years. Some hail this accomplishment as a testament to their unending dominance, to their great defensive performance, or to the ageless Tom Brady. New Orleans, however, knows the real story.[/su_pullquote]
The referee’s whistle remained silent, however. No penalty flag hit the ground. The Rams scored twice more and advanced to the super bowl. Saints fans think their team would have won the super bowl, but we will never know.
Why care, though? After all, for non-football fans, football seems backwards. It is merely grown men tackling each other for entertainment and the profits of old white billionaires.
Psychologist Susan Krauss Whitbourne writes of the phenomena of “BIRGing” and “CORFing” (“Basking in Reflected Glory” and “Cutting Off Reflected Failure”) that help human beings align themselves with feelings of success while distancing themselves from feelings of failure. Our self-esteem increases with our team’s success because of allegiance to a city and is preserved by our ability to easily cut allegiances (at least temporarily) in failure while still celebrating our sporting heroes.
Football’s psychological effect contributes to its tremendous popularity. According to the analytics firm Nielsen, 103.4 million people – just under a third of the total US population – viewed super bowl LII in 2018. In the 2017 NFL season, the operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of the New Orleans Saints alone amounted to $115 million, suggesting vast amounts of fans spending on jerseys, tickets and other Saints merchandise – spending that justifies Saints fans’ frustrations at the referee in the NFC championship game.
Saints fans support their team, and their team supports them back. Though terribly underprepared, the Louisiana Superdome managed to house 30,000 refugees who could not evacuate the city in time for hurricane Katrina. The Saints also help fund local schools, start small businesses, and play an active role in the New Orleans community. Other NFL teams also contribute to the community; the Green Bay Packers, for instance, the only nonprofit NFL team, donates 60 percent of proceeds from concessions (in a perpetually sold-out stadium) to local Wisconsin charities. It seems unjust, therefore, that teams with such tremendous ties to their local communities are dependent on the NFL.
Ranging from the trivial to the outright dangerous, the NFL’s problems stem from everyone from the players to the commissioner. Off the field, NFL teams allow domestic abusers in their clubs; in the 2017 draft, the Oakland Raiders drafted Gareon Conley, the Cincinnati Bengals drafted Joe Mixon and the Cleveland Browns drafted Caleb Brandtley, all of whom face accusations of domestic violence. Far from the only accused, all three still play in the NFL. Last autumn, the Kansas City Chiefs chose to cut running back Kareem Hunt not because he assaulted a woman in a Cleveland hotel, but because he lied about it. A few months later, the Cleveland Browns (ironically the city of the incident) signed him. NFL teams actively choose not to hold abusive players accountable for their actions and allow incidents like these to abound.
[su_pullquote]The Saints, representing the city of New Orleans – its economy, its people and its struggles – lost because of the NFL’s incompetence.[/su_pullquote]In addition, the NFL minimally supports brain-damage research, despite the fact that such damage could lead to players losing self-control and committing acts of violence. In 99 percent of deceased NFL player brains donated for scientific research, scientists found Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a disease which disables neuropathways controlling memory, judgement and aggression. Essentially, the NFL exposes players to a disease potentially leading to situations of violence (violence which, as mentioned previously, NFL teams refuse to take seriously). While the NFL has since funded research, Business Insider reports that they have purposely undermined and covered up more than 100 concussions.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]The NFL, which cannot fulfill its mission to provide entertainment, facilitate competition, and positively influence society does not deserve our attention or dedication.[/su_pullquote]An average fan, however, might justify the NFL’s behavior because the NFL ought to focus on its mission: facilitating quality entertainment and competition. This brings us back to the incident of the NFC championship. If the NFL allowed coaches to challenge pass-interference penalties, the Saints would have unequivocally won the NFC championship. The Saints, representing the city of New Orleans – its economy, its people and its struggles – lost because of the NFL’s incompetence. Such an organization, which cannot fulfill its mission to provide entertainment, facilitate competition, and positively influence society does not deserve our attention or dedication.
Christian Monzon ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at Christian.monzon@wustl.edu.