Death and Violence- Something the NFL Can't Tackle

Professional football is a violent game; I think at times we forget that as we watch it on TV far removed from the on-field action. While it would ideal for NFL players to only be violent during practice and for 3-hours on Sunday afternoons, human beings often don’t have a switch that allows them to step into a proverbial phone booth and change back to a “real life” persona.

Over the last several years, a relatively large number of NFL players have met their demise at very young ages. From Darrent Williams being shot in the back of a limousine on New Year’s Eve a few years ago to Sean Taylor being shot during a burglary in his home to last year’s tragic death of Chris Henry, troubled Cincinnati Bengals WR, who was involved in a domestic incident which found him in the back of a pick-up being driven by his girlfriend from which he was thrown to his demise. The commonality among each of these deaths is that all involved young NFL players dying far before their time and each player’s life ended in a violent manner.

I am rarely taken back by the death of an NFL player, based on the evidence previously presented above, but admittedly when 23 year-old Kenny McKinley, a WR with the Denver Broncos, decided to put a shotgun in his mouth and violently end his life, it startled me. McKinley was an up and coming young player who held many of the receiving records at the University of South Carolina, a school that was home to such greats at Sterling Sharpe and Robert Brooks. After all, to most of us these guys live the perfect lives right? They make millions of dollars to presumably play a game they love which they have played since they were 6 and 7 year old boys. However, when the helmets and pads come off what most of us never stop to consider is that professional athletes have problems just like each of us. While it may be hard for a person with three or four children, no job who is behind on their mortgage to understand; money doesn’t automatically make all one’s problems vanish. In some cases, it will make those problems worse depending on the specific issue.

Too many times NFL fans think of the players as the characters they see when their kids (or themselves) are playing NFL Madden Football. If a guy isn’t playing up to par you will hear the casual fan say, “cut him”; if a guy is hurt you will hear “we can win without him, no big deal”. While I am not advocating keeping players who cannot play football, I am merely trying to point out that cutting a football player from the team is the same as someone in your company getting fired. There are family consequences from kids changing schools to selling homes to figuring out where the player’s next paycheck is going to come from.

For every Peyton Manning who makes $12 million per season, there is a Kenny McKinley making $400,000 to $500,000 to cover kickoffs and punts. Before you tell me that you would do that for $500,000 a year, I want you to consider if you would go through all the violent practices, the endless weight lifting and running for a career that may last 4 or 5 years if the player is lucky? At the end, many of these young men are left physically broken without the mental wherewithal to make it in the real world.

Make me no mistake, I am not feeling bad for guys who make half a million dollars a year to play a game while 10% of Americans cannot find a job these days. I am merely trying to point out that the players don’t live lives any more perfect than any of ours. More importantly, they play a sport where their problems are traditionally solved with violence. For all the skill and strategy we say we love about football, it’s a guilty pleasure because deep down most fans love the big hits and huge blocks- aren’t these what end up on SportsCenter every night during the season. Ultimately we should not act surprised when a man who makes his living being violent ends up in a violent situation or solves his “real life” problems with brute force.

I wonder what was bothering young Kenny McKinley so much a few days ago that he decided that the only solution to his problems was to go into a room, put a shotgun in his mouth and literally blow his head off his shoulders? Whatever was bothering him, I’m quite sure that he did not take the time to consider just how permanent a “solution” he chose to deal with his problems. However, based on what we ask these guys to do on Sunday afternoons, we should never act surprised when the path that an NFL players choose to deal with strife is violence.