ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The biggest fallout for the NFL from the helmet-to-helmet shot by New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. on Carolina Panthers cornerback Josh Norman on Sunday wasn’t the league suspending Beckham for one game.
It was that we cared so much.
When the NFL declared Monday that it was suspending Beckham for his obvious purposeful helmet-to-helmet shot on Norman in an ugly battle that went on all game, all the league was doing was carrying out the orders from social media.
The mob declared that what Beckham did was unacceptable — and that should worry the NFL and those who are angry about the changing landscape of the game on the field.
Those who watched Beckham’s hit on Norman, whether they realized it or not, were offended by the helmet-to-helmet hit because of the stories of former NFL players killing themselves from brain damage, the brains of former players being cut up by researchers and the interviews with players who talk about being unable to sleep or sometimes remember how to get home.
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We saw Beckham hit Norman, and we thought of Junior Seau and Dave Duerson and Tony Dorsett and the generation of damaged heroes who we celebrated for being tough enough to deliver and absorb such shots.
Oh, it may not have come to mind right away, but you can believe that the sense of outrage was fueled by the guilt and fears we all have while watching the game today. We have now reached the point of compartmentalizing the violence we watch on the field — what is acceptable violence, and what is unacceptable?
On that day, Dec. 20, 2015, the helmet-to-helmet hit from Beckham to Norman was unacceptable.
What will be unacceptable five years from now, or 10 years from now? As football searches for answers about the game and brain damage — answers that don’t appear to be there — how much bigger will the compartment for unacceptable violence get for us to be able to watch the game?
There was a time where a hit like Beckham’s might have sparked a flag (ironically, there was no flag on Sunday), but nothing else — no mob with pitchforks looking for punishment. There was once an entire team of players in this league, the Oakland Raiders, who were celebrated for doling out such damage.
When Raiders safety Jack Tatum died in 2013, The New York Times’ obituary referred to him as “the symbol of a violent game.” Tatum wrote in his 1980 book, “They Call Me Assassin,” that “I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault.”
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll referred to Tatum’s teammate, safety George Atkinson, as part of the “criminal element” in the league for his violent play, and Atkinson turned around and sued him for defamation. He lost, maybe in part because it was difficult to prove there wasn’t a “criminal element” in the game that was acceptable, sanctioned violence.
No longer. Today, a wide receiver named Odell Beckham Jr. — a player who had been celebrated and promoted by the NFL for his acrobatic catches — is “the symbol of a violent game.”
Will there be any symbols left five years or 10 years from now?
Make no mistake about it: Despite the television ratings that still make the NFL king, the culture is changing. On Friday, a movie, “Concussion,” will be released in theaters that suggests the “criminal element” in the NFL might be the league itself, with the accusations of a cover-up about the long-term effects from hits to the head like the one Beckham gave to Norman on Sunday.
The reaction to Beckham’s hit is more evidence of the changing culture. A helmet-to-helmet retribution shot that didn’t result in players surrounding Norman knelt down in prayer, or him being carried off the field on a stretcher, provoked a tidal wave of outrage — not for the hit, but for what is represents.
Malcolm Gladwell is the author who wrote the best-seller “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” which described how small sociological changes can lead to massive culture change. He has long predicted that football is on a path to extinction.
“It’ll start to shrivel up at the high school and college level and then the pro game I think will eventually wither on the vine,” he said several years ago.
Now, Gladwell may just have an agenda where he despises the game. But if you believe that small changes are part of a bigger picture of culture change, then the public reaction to Beckham’s retribution hit on Norman is part of something bigger: What we can live with as we watch, for as long as we watch.
⦁ Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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