That mindset—that the needs of any individual must and will always be subsumed to that of the unit or team, and that weakness (especially emotional weakness such as the kind evinced by Martin) cannot and will not be tolerated—is a bad copy of what is demanded by the military.
Which is not an accident: the NFL is massively profitable, multi-billion dollar “non-profit” industry that has consciously chosen to brand itself as a socially acceptable substitute for actual combat. The language used to describe action on the field is indistinguishable from and frequently interchangeable with military jargon, as in the fictional pass play described above: a 100 yard-long version of the Stars and Stripes is unfurled before kickoff, the Blue Angels are practically de rigeur, and a tepid midseason game between middling-to-shoddy teams is deemed an apocalyptic clash of civilizations.
The football-as-war theme isn’t just a slick marketing package. It’s a reality for the people that do this for a living. Football players think of themselves as warriors, solders, and gladiators, and so on. Football coaches see themselves as generals—as leaders and shapers of men, devisers of grand stratagems resulting in golden laurels and glory.
Football is not war, but to a certain degree, they’re right. Playing in the NFL for an extended period of time is going to get many of them killed, crippled, or permanently disabled, whether that’s due to Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis, early onset arthritis, or a myriad of other chronic physical ailments that they’ll incur as a result of playing the game. There’s an ever-mounting list of suicides that have been attributed to brain damage: Dave Duerson, Andre Waters, Jovan Belcher, Junior Seau, and on and on. Though the NFL does everything in its power to cover up the fact, there’s no sugarcoating it: football is a meat grinder.
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