Tag: National Football League

Is This the Way the NFL Ends? T. S. Eliot, Jim McMahon, And The End of Football In America

~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

– From The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot.

Jim McMahon was trending on Twitter this morning because of this interview with SportsCenter that aired yesterday.

“He had a concussion, but it cleared up by halftime.”  – a Bears team doctor in 1988.

“We knew about risks to every other part of the body.  But we didn’t know about the brain trauma.  They did.  They lied.”  – Jim McMahon

Headpieces of straw.  Paralyzed force.  Not lost, violent souls. The hollow men.  The stuffed men.

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

This the way the NFL ends, with a bang.  With a million concussions.

I hope these players get every dime.

Regarding Tebow

~ Chris Cocca ~ 5 Comments

Tim Tebow strikes me as classy, upstanding, hardworking young man.  I like him. I also like when people, in this case, Broncos coach John Fox, are willing to go all in with what they have.  No, Tebow is not a traditional NFL quarterback, nor is he able, at least at this point, to play in a traditional NFL offense.

So what?  There was a time when the whole concept of specialized closers in baseball was unthinkable.  I’d love to see more ingenuity on the coaching side of  sports and less sanctimonious, sacrosanct garbage.  We’d all do well with less culty fandoms.

Enjoy this post from Yahoo!Sports’ MJD about Fox’s willingness to throw out “that other crap” (that is, the passing game) so that Tebow and the Broncos might have a chance to succeed.