Week 1 of the NFL season will be wrapping up Monday night and we have already seen more injuries than I can count. During the Sunday night game we saw Brandon Jacobs and Osi Umenyiora go down. Eli Manning had to leave the game too. The Cowboys lost their nose tackle, maybe for the season. The Buffalo Bills lost several key defensive players today, and a tight end that may be paralyzed for life.
Mike Brown, Al Harris, Cadillac Williams, Orlando Pace, Chester Taylor, and Chad Pennington have all been hurt. I won't mention the rest of the star players that left their games hobbling, later returned, but will still show up on the injury reports next week. Is it just me or are the frequency and severity of injuries in the NFL gone through the roof? I understand that it is a rough sport and injuries are part of the game, but to what extent can we let that continue? At this rate, by week 8, we'll be watching games on Sunday and not recognizing half of the players on the field! It will seem like we are watching a game with replacement players during a strike season.
Can anything be done to curb the frequency and severity of injuries in the NFL or do we just need to continue to pray that our star players get back up after every tackle? Are players getting too fast and too strong? Are performance enhancing drugs making players more dangerous and possibly more fragile at the same time? It seems as though there is an injury timeout nearly every other play during an NFL game. Run a play...care for the wounded...run another play...care for the wounded...Are we playing football or fighting a war here?
Injuries have always been a part of the game. Watching yesterday, I realized most players were just not in game shape. Look at the top 3 RB's, other than LT scoring 2 td's (1 throwing), he had 25 yds, Jackson 18 carries 58 yds and LJ 10 carries for 43 yds. The fact that they hardly play in preseason games anymore I believe adds to the fact of being out of game shape, thus more injuries.
I think they're all just distracted and depressed because their focus on their preparations were interrupted by Kelly Clarkson and John Mellencamp concerts. The Superbowl flashed before their eyes, and they saw themselves waiting around to start the game while some queen of fluff pop took over the football field, and they just lost all heart.
This blogger is a New Yorker, born and raised. I'm a huge sports fan, following pretty much every major sport out there. Sadly, this does not include hockey, NASCAR, or boxing. Hockey lost my affection during the lockout, NASCAR is not a sport, and boxing has become incredibly boring since the dawn of MMA. If you want to talk football, baseball, basketball, or MMA, then I'm your man. I could also debate NASCAR with anyone, but we would probably end up just going around in circles...
