Into the Fire

We're not talking kisses and hugs here. We're talking football. We're talking about the politically correct invading a sport where gifted athletes, who are no less fallible in their humanity than you and I, compete on professional teams for a pre-season of four games and a regular season of sixteen games. From the end of the regular season, the playoffs begin for the best and the season ends for the rest. The Super Bowl is the ultimate goal. The victors of the AFC play the victors of the NFC.

I love professional football. According to one Boston well-respected sportswriter, those of us who love this sport are borderline psychopaths. Really. Because we appreciate the precision passes, the smashing skills of running backs, the blocking schemes, the pass rushes, the concise interceptions against all odds and favor since that receiver is now considered "defenseless".

My favorite defensive back (and, yes, I am prejudicially a homer) Richard Sherman, who is also a Stanford graduate and well-spoken (when he's not smack-talkin') intelligent young man, spoke candidly about concussions and injuries. Refusing to concede to the current climate of the NFL which is intent on restricting the sport from certain kinds of hits, Richard said every athlete knows the risks of playing the game and intimated you'd be lying if you pretended not to know. He told a reporter he once experienced the symptoms of a concussion but chose not to mention it so he could continue playing and even made an interception later in that game.

To bring the leftwing politics into a sport is to determine that "they" can control it and make it perfect by orchestrating exactly how the athletes should play the game. Make it less "violent" so there will be fewer injuries and concussions because it's not right that young men should bash each other around in a game. If you recall, many public schools have eliminated playing with actual balls on playgrounds, substituting Nerf balls, stopped Dodgeball and every other game the left believes could be potentially hurtful or injurious, both physically and emotionally, to kids. (Yet these same people champion the slaughter of unborn children. Paradox anyone?) 

The utopians have invaded the NFL and are being accommodated by the Commissioner Roger Goodell to echo their "concerns" and mimic the politically correct assumptions about how football should be played. It's disgusting, unfair, and typically sissy-fying a tough and hard-played sport with subjective rulings by inconsistent referees who throw those yellow flags on perceived "illegal" hits in one game and the same hits are not penalized in other games. The rules are expanding and limiting and interfere with the love and enjoyment of the game.

Professional football is played by the best of the best. Incredible athletes, some of impeccable character and others who lack it, join together to work as a team, competing at the highest level to acheive the goal of winning the Super Bowl. It's a hard-fought journey to get to that level, and injuries play a significant part along the way. The intangibles such as teamwork and chemistry must mix with superior talent and all come together just right to win a Super Bowl.

When those who have no business doing so step in to ruin a sport, it's just one more area of our lives where control is being exercised to make everything better. As is usually the case when they do this: it's ruining the sport and making another little corner of life less enjoyable and less reasonable.

Father, the arrogance of humanity is personified in the desire to control others' lives. Please help them to see the arrogance for what it is. You are the only perfection. There is none on this earth or in any of us. We are sinners. Our only hope is in you, Jesus. Amen.