Seahawks lose Sherman for season
Torn Achilles tendon for Seattle’s star cornerback
From revelations that Aaron Hernandez had catastrophic brain damage to Richard Sherman becoming the latest star to go down with a season-ending injury to a groggy Russell Wilson somehow getting back on the field in barely the amount of time it would take to ask him his name, it’s been a brutal 24 hours for the NFL.
Certainly, it’s not a good time to be a football player.
Then again, we’re learning it’s really never a good time to be a football player.
These modern-day gladiators willingly put their lives on the line for our enjoyment each week, a spectacle roughly equivalent to a car wreck in helmet and shoulder pads.
Maybe at some point there won’t be anyone willing or able to take part in this carnage, which so senselessly devours its own, but that’s probably just wishful thinking.
There’s too much money involved for this sport to go away anytime soon.
In the meantime, we have to keep asking ourselves if a few hours of supposed enjoyment while sprawled out on the couch — and, yes, that includes me — is worth the enormous toll that it takes on the guys we are watching?
Let’s start with Hernandez, the former New England tight end sent to prison for murder, who took his own life just days after being acquitted in another killing.
Turns out, his 27-year-old brain was a complete mess, suffering from damage to the parts that affect memory, judgment and behaviour. A researcher said it was most severe case of the degenerative disease linked to repeated head blows that has ever been found in someone so young.
“We’ve never seen this in our 468 brains,” said Dr. Ann McKee, director of Boston University’s CTE Center, “except in individuals some 20 years older.”
A few hours after McKee revealed those findings, the Seattle Seahawks took the field against the Arizona Cardinals in one of those Thursday night games that are essentially a cash grab for a league that already rakes in billions.
“This (expletive) should be illegal,” Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin told the Tacoma News Tribune after a game that looked more like an episode of M*A*S*H minus the laugh track. “It’s not OK.” Baldwin’s anger was understandable. Sherman hobbled off the field with a ruptured Achilles tendon, depriving the Seahawks of their best cornerback for the rest of the season. The Cardinals lost their starting left tackle, D.J. Humphries, and leading tackler, safety Tyvon Branch, to knee injuries that may finish them off for the year.
In all, at least seven players were hurt in Seattle’s 22-16 victory.
The day of the week had nothing to do with Wilson’s troubling case.
The Seahawks’ quarterback took a blow to the chin in the third quarter, a play that resulted in a roughing-the-passer penalty on Karlos Dansby.
Concerned about Wilson’s health, ref Walt Anderson sent him off the field. But Wilson was in the injury tent for only a few moments. He missed a grand total of one play.
“I wasn’t concussed or anything like that,” Wilson insisted after the game.
That’s not his call to make, and it seems downright implausible that a thorough concussion exam could be conducted in such a short period of time.