NFL 2022: The Week 17 thread

Enix wrote:

Week 18 schedule is out. The Sunday night game is Lions-Packers.

Wish that game was in DET. Feels like they deserve a meaningful game with all eyes on them and if I hear "frozen tundra" Church of Football stuff one more time I'm going to puke.

Also: Go Goff! Go Lions!

f*ck.

Call the game. The football doesn't matter right now.

Yeah this is insane. Nobody can play tonight

Everyone should just leave regardless of what the league's trying to get them to do.

ESPN just reported the players were out in the halls shaking hands and hugging, and the Bills are collecting equipment on the sideline. The game appears done for tonight, at minimum.

Just put on archival footage, Modern Family re-runs, whatever.

Making then "analyze" this on Live TV when we're all agreed, we don't know anything until we know something, is just dumb.

Officially suspended.

@jasrifootball wrote:

So it seems like the NFL decided to take a five minute break to allow the players to gather themselves, but head coaches of both teams intervened and led their players into the locker room

If that’s the case, that’s an awesome move by Sean McDermott and Zac Taylor

Prederick wrote:

Making then "analyze" this on Live TV when we're all agreed, we don't know anything until we know something, is just dumb.

They kept repeating the word "unprecedented" and it took a good deal of restraint from me yelling that no, it's not. It's just that the precedent precedes the internet, television, and radio. Over a century ago life-threatening injuries and death on the football field were far more common and it took Theodore Roosevelt threatening drop the full weight of the US government on the colleges involved in the sport to address player safety.

Rat Boy wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Making then "analyze" this on Live TV when we're all agreed, we don't know anything until we know something, is just dumb.

They kept repeating the word "unprecedented" and it took a good deal of restraint from me yelling that no, it's not. It's just that the precedent precedes the internet, television, and radio. Over a century ago life-threatening injuries and death on the football field were far more common and it took Theodore Roosevelt threatening drop the full weight of the US government on the colleges involved in the sport to address player safety.

Chuck Hughes died on the field in 1971. Some of us are old enough to actually remember that.

Pure speculation but this is what may have happened..Commotio Cordis

Paleocon wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Making then "analyze" this on Live TV when we're all agreed, we don't know anything until we know something, is just dumb.

They kept repeating the word "unprecedented" and it took a good deal of restraint from me yelling that no, it's not. It's just that the precedent precedes the internet, television, and radio. Over a century ago life-threatening injuries and death on the football field were far more common and it took Theodore Roosevelt threatening drop the full weight of the US government on the colleges involved in the sport to address player safety.

Chuck Hughes died on the field in 1971. Some of us are old enough to actually remember that.

Also a name I didn't see get trotted out tonight. Speaks to how easily this can feel unprecedented. Or how the sport's past can be swept under the rug and collectively forgotten.

Saw someone mention this online, and I need to heed it too: One of the things we should take from this is to get certified in CPR and, if you can, push for more buildings to have AEDs in them. You never know.

Hughes' death was due to an undiagnosed case of severe arteriosclerosis, however. He didn't die from taking a hit (unless Wikipedia is wrong, very possibly). So in that way it is different. Has a player ever died from the impact of an on field play?

Bills wrote:

Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit in our game versus the Bengals. His heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the UC Medical Center for further testing and treatment. He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.

It is almost like this is terrible sport being officiated by a terrible league.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Has a player ever died from the impact of an on field play?

If you count the death coming later, then hits contributing to CTE have caused plenty of deaths.

The names that came to mind for me last night though were Darryl Stingley and Mike Utley, who were paralyzed from on-field impacts. Not death, but also awful and traumatic. Stingley many years later died from illness complicated by his paralysis.

Skip Bayless discovered that throwing a platitude in at the very end of a tweet doesn't absolve you from making the tweet's core point.

*Legion* wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Has a player ever died from the impact of an on field play?

If you count the death coming later, then hits contributing to CTE have caused plenty of deaths.

The names that came to mind for me last night though were Darryl Stingley and Mike Utley, who were paralyzed from on-field impacts. Not death, but also awful and traumatic. Stingley many years later died from illness complicated by his paralysis.

Junior Seau.

Paleocon wrote:

Junior Seau.

Seau.

Dave Duerson.

Demaryius Thomas.

Andre Waters.

Ray Easterling.

Tyler Sash.

And a couple that are uncomfortable to talk about for obvious reasons:

Jovan Belcher

Aaron Hernandez

The Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week and there are no changes to the week 18 schedule. At least that's a sensible decision for now.

Pink Stripes wrote:

The Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week and there are no changes to the week 18 schedule. At least that's a sensible decision for now.

Seems likely to me that the league will add a "week 19", where they will schedule the continuation of this game, and give everyone else a de facto bye.

I think about the Tua hit where he was effectively having an on-field seizure and then what happened last night, and, sure, the Tua thing is awful, but I think all of those players on the field last night understand that level of risk; yeah, risk assessment is not exactly something young men are known for, but, on some level, they all understand the possibility of catastrophic injuries, and that there's a very real risk of CTE down the road. Whether or not they can be considered to be fully informed, they've been playing this game for years, and they've internalized and accepted the possibility of taking a hit that changes their life forever.

What happened to Hamlin, though . . . nobody accepted that. As NFL hits go, that was as mundane as could be, and, sure, Hamlin went a bit high, but you're going to coach your players to wrap up the body and drag them to the ground. There wasn't any spearing, headhunting, or vaguely dirty play there. Those players witnessed somebody young and healthy die on the field for a while, and that's the thing. I'd wager if he'd been hit in the head and collapsed to the point of needing CPR, the players would actually be slightly better off, because that kind of thing is in some way part of the game. Seeing somebody collapse and need CPR without any real visible cause of traumatic injury is one of those reminders of mortality that these guys find it easy to ignore.

It makes me think of all those young athletes who have walked off the basketball court or playing field and just dropped on the spot, and that's one of the reasons why emergency cardiac care and AEDs are so much more in the public mindset. My wife was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy some years back, and had open-heart surgery about five years ago, so, not shockingly, it's a condition I've read up on a lot. HCM is one of the things that has killed so many young athletes, because when you're young and fit you don't know, and it just sometimes results in the heart over-exterting and just stopping. Clearly have no medical background at all for this, but, not shockingly, it's something I'm thinking about today based on my past experiences.

*Legion* wrote:
Pink Stripes wrote:

The Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week and there are no changes to the week 18 schedule. At least that's a sensible decision for now.

Seems likely to me that the league will add a "week 19", where they will schedule the continuation of this game, and give everyone else a de facto bye.

And just to be clear, this isn’t what I would do if I were in charge.

If it were up to me, the Bills and Bengals would not resume the game. I would declare both teams winners. I don’t care if the W-L math no longer evens out exactly. If it’s a problem, give an extra loss to the Browns to even it out. They earned it.

I would still add a week 19, and make it an official week in the schedule, and give the entire league a bye. Welcome to the Damar Hamlin NFL Player Safety Week.

Going forward, the NFL would continue to have a 19 week schedule, with Player Safety Week acting as a league-wide second bye week (scheduled during the season this time). Because one of the most immediate and meaningful ways to improve player safety is MORE RECOVERY TIME.

And it stays a league-wide bye so that it doesn’t add games to the TV schedule. Instead, the sports media can spend the week talking about player safety.

NFL Network and the Hall of Fame have postponed the release of the Hall of Fame finalists list that was supposed to release today.

*Legion* wrote:

Skip Bayless discovered that throwing a platitude in at the very end of a tweet doesn't absolve you from making the tweet's core point.

Possibly related that Shannon Sharpe wasn't on their show today.

An early and truncated Week 18 thread.