NFL Violence Special Feature: Don’t Blame The Player, Blame The Game

When a football player does something stupid and violent outside the arena, we’re usually the first to call them out. When then-Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss drove into a meter maid five years ago and explained how he was going to pay his fine (“straight cash, homie”), it became more than an act of stupidity to us. It became a team name and battle cry for our three-time championship winning fantasy football team, Str8 Cash Homiez. When Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick got arrested for electrocuting and shooting dogs, we were the first to buy our dogs No. 7 chew toys.
But while we mock football players for their bone-headedness in dealing with their violent tendencies off the field, we sort of understand. Since their pee-wee days, players are encouraged to harness all that anger and energy to kill the quarterback for our entertainment. But what happens to the few players who can’t turn the switch off? In a league of 1500+ men who are paid to be muscle-y and angry, it’s going to happen. We just hope no one dies when it does.

You may laugh, but take a look at the picture above. It’s of former Oakland Raiders tight end Marcus Williams. It was taken the day after his teammate Bill Romanowski tore off Williams’ helmet and punched him in the face during practice, breaking his orbital bone and ending his career.

Romanowski’s (left) the most extreme case ever of a football player pushing himself beyond the limit. In 16 seasons, he never missed a game and once said that “there was only one way to survive in the NFL: with overpowering strength and hatred.” He also once told his son that “Daddy did a lot of things to deal with the pain of the game,” after his son asked him about steroids, which he admits he took toward the end of his career while with Oakland (when he demolished his teammate Williams’ face). He also once went for a fumble in the Super Bowl and in the process snapped Dave Meggett’s finger. Again, he’s the most extreme, but far from the only one.
If the competitive nature and drive of these behemoths can’t be contained on the field and you add the pressures of sponsors and fans, why wouldn’t someone’s face look like a fine place to displace all that sense of hatred and strength Romanowski talks about? It can all add up and make even the kickers lose their heads, as the Giants’ Lawrence Tynes (right) proved when he broke a bouncer’s nose at a nightclub during a brawl. If the player with the easiest job of the twenty-two starters can’t hold it in, what chance does a 300-pound defensive lineman, whose job it is to pound other massive lineman, have to reign in his anger?
None. That’s why sometimes the guy at the gas station who feels he has the right to yell at a player because he wears the team’s jersey gets his face Williams-ized. Or that rage comes home with a player and punches his wife or kills some dogs. Because after being yelled at all day by fans and coaches; getting million dollar endorsements threatened to be yanked if they don’t pull it together; being served by the woman they slept with two nights ago with paternity papers before the zygote has had a chance to shit… he just loses it. Football players: get rid of your aggressions the only way you know how—on the field. Then pop some pain killers, go to sleep and dream about a place where no one knows who you are until the alarm wakes you up at 6 AM to rinse, repeat and kill.
Us fans will be there to greet you with open arms, right? Do you care where a player takes out his frustrations, as long as he continues to sack the quarterback, or throw and catch for touchdowns?
Images: Marcus Williams [SFGate.com]; Bill Romanowski [CBS]; Lawence Tynes [cheddarheads.co.uk]