Comments

  1. thelastholdout says

    The brawl at the end was utterly disappointing. I get that the Seahawks were frustrated but there was no reason to start a fight over it. Up until then it was a fun game to watch though. At least, if you’re a football fan and you like those kinds of things. :P

    Hope it wasn’t too painful for you, PZ.

  2. Nick Gotts says

    What on earth is a “super bowl”? There’s obviously no such thing. Must be a misprint for “superb owl”, which is naturally of interest to a biologist!

  4. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Nick Gotts

    What on earth is a “super bowl”? There’s obviously no such thing.

    Pfffft, shows what you know. I’ve run into and hit some super bowls.

  6. says

    thelastholdout

    Oh, you mean when a football team loses their overly-macho, violent sport, they overreact and get angry and fight? Well, color me surprised!

  8. samgardner says

    marilove@6,

    Well, ideally they wouldn’t. They would respect the decorum and honor inherent in the game of American Football and…

    well, yeah, I’m not surprised either. But I am disappointed. The sport is not “overly macho” — though a lot of the players are. And I feel the players should respect what they’re doing enough to avoid cheapening it with a schoolyard brawl.

    Maybe I’m dreaming, but I also don’t think violence should be the purpose of the game. If it really is, then the sport should just be ended.

  9. unclefrogy says

    the purpose seems to be the violence, doubt it, just try and get the game to be less violent.
    Any big fight is OK and if they happen will only likely increase the audience in the future.
    uncle frogy

  10. says

    >Decorum and honor inherent in the game of American Football? That’s hilarious. :)

    Why should you be disappointed? They are acting exactly like they’ve always acted. It’s not like this is new behavior. The entire point of the sport is to run down your opponent at least half the time — the other half is to kick the ball as far and as fast as you can. The biggest, fastest, most aggressive players get the most attention and field time.

    >”Though a lot of the players are.”

    The players ARE the culture of the sport. You can’t separate the two. If the players are overly aggressive and macho, why do you think that is? Perhaps because the game and the culture of the game promotes it?

    Football isn’t the only sport with this problem. Even Baseball has weird machismo attached to it. Hockey — a sport I enjoy, btw — is sometimes even worse than Football, although it tends to be more theatrical, and they seem to take themselves less seriously (but this is conjecture as I don’t know enough about the sport to say for certain).

    I think the biggest point is that football (and baseball, for that matter), takes itself REALLY FUCKING SERIOUSLY. The “MUST WIN!” mentality is so strong, and the culture of American football in this country is so rampant and out of control, that it’s actually surprising that more fights and riots don’t break out.

    There seems to be no light-heartedness left in most of American sports. Which is pathetic. IT IS JUST A GAME. People need to get a grip.

  11. says

    And remember, this is the same sport and the same fans of the sport that FREAKED THE FUCK OUT when a draft pick — not even a *first* draft pick — game out as openly gay.

    How, then, do you follow that the sport isn’t overly macho, if they can’t even accept an openly gay player? Come on. Think about this rationally.

  12. says

    Why am I redditing all my block quotes? I never really even use reddit, lol. Apologies! Continuing on:

    And what about the Ray Rice debacle? Are you STILL sure it’s not about violence? A woman was beat to a bloody pulp and it was caught on camera and no one really gave a shit!

    And , if it’s not a sport of violence, then why are there so many problems with brain injuries and concussions? You cannot make the claim that a sport is not violent if it is literally killing players due to the violent nature of the sport.

    The inability for fans of sports to think critically about their sport is … astonishing to me.
    “It’s not a violent sport at all! Players just get massive amounts of head injuries and serious concussions all the time because of … well, it just happens for no reason! Surely not because the sport is inherently violent!”

    Have you watched football recently? With open eyes?

  17. llamaherder says

    the purpose seems to be the violence, doubt it, just try and get the game to be less violent.

    They’ve been making it marginally less violent over the past few years, making hits to the helmet illegal and such.

    People are very, very angry about it.