I Love Professional Football, But I Can't Ignore The Glaring Issues In The NFL (Part 1: Roger Goodell And Concussions)

I'm not going to dive deep into any specific point I bring up in this series for the sake of conciseness. This is intended to be a quick overview of what's wrong with the NFL. I will probably end up writing a detailed analysis of each point I bring up after I've finished it all. I will go into more details in the comments if requested to do so.

I have loved the football since 1st grade. I didn't know what football was until then because, as an immigrant, nobody in my family really knew what it was. The only reason I found out about it was because of recess. And I discovered the NFL when I accidentally watched the Carolina Panthers vs. Philadelphia Eagles NFC Championship game in 2003. From then on, I've been a diehard Carolina Panther fan and closely follow the NFL.

In my opinion, professional football is the most magnificent thing to watch, here's why:

There's anywhere from 100-200 plays per game and every single play features 11 of the some of the world's most athletically gifted men trained to do a specific task (score points) going against 11 more of some of the world's most athletically gifted men trained to stop them from completing that task (scoring points). Every single athlete on the field has been specifically trained to occupy a specific role in this endeavor, as has their opponent, so you in every game you get 1100 to 2200 individual competitions between super athletes of one trying to best the other. And on top of this, each side has coordinators, who are individuals that have worked their whole lives trying to perfect a system that allows their group of super-athletes to be as successful as possible.
It's all tied together by the violence of it all. It takes a special individual to be able to successfully navigate a football field fearlessly, even though at any moment, an enormous man is going to hit you as hard as they can.

I'm not even really scratching the surface of how magnificent it all truly is, but that's not what this is about.

To put it delicately, the people that own the NFL fucking suck. There are 31 of them, and the Green Bay Packers (owned by the people of Green Bay). Those 31 owners select a CEO via majority vote, who is currently Roger Goodell. Roger Goodell handles just about every single important thing related to the league (ex. Discipline, TV contracts), and essentially does so without any checks and balances. As long as Roger Goodell makes money, Roger Goodell can do whatever he wants. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/why-roger-goodell-will-never-be-fired)Whatever Roger says, the NFL says, and that is law (unless a federal judge steps in: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2017/09/09/ezekiel-elliott-will-probably-play-all-season-after-court-ruling/).

From this point forward, Roger Goodell will now be known as Fuckface McFacist (http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/15426767/nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-defends-power-citing-integrity-game).

Also this (from ESPN):

This brings us to concussions, which I don't want to write out when I can just provide articles about it. To sum it up concisely, the NFL knew the ramifications of concussions and worked to undercut it. And, as it turns out, a bunch of injuries to your brain is very bad for your brain, so a bunch of former players are suing. Links:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-nfl-worked-to-hide-the-truth-about-concussions-and-brain-damage-excerpt/
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/08/15/new-cte-study-effect-nfl-concussion-settlement
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-nfls-concussion-problem-still-has-not-gone-away/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/30/us/nfl-concussions-fast-facts/index.html

To combat concussions, the NFL is attempting to design equipment that will make them less likely coupled with creating rules that heavily discourage using the head to hit or hitting the head of the opposing player.

Unfortunately, I believe concussions will always be a part of the NFL. There isn't really a way around it as they're running at incredible speeds into each other. A lot of the time it's impossible to avoid having a player's head get impacted to some degree. It's the nature of the game.

So if concussions are bad, and the NFL causes concussions, the only conclusion seems to be to eliminate the NFL or just deal with it.

As it turns out, there's something the significantly helps with healing concussions. Cannabis. (http://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com/post-concussion-syndrome-medical-marijuana-research-overview/)

From Herb.co:
http://herb.co/2016/10/31/cannabis-heal-concussion/

Now, on April 28th, Fuckface McFascist said the NFL sees no medical benefits from Marijuana: http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19264404/commissioner-roger-goodell-says-nfl-sees-no-medical-benefits-marijuana
Recently, Fuckface McFascist seems to have realized how wrong he is and softened his stance: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/08/03/roger-goodell-marijuana-is-a-medical-issue-that-needs-further-research/

I'm going to end this part here for the sake of being concise and to avoid jumping into more issues. I'm going to pick up where I left off with the next part, so stay tuned.