Whipped Cream Difficulties

And so we come to the end of Gregg Easterbrook’s first season writing TMQ for the New York Times. What does he have in store for us this week? Would you believe neuroscience and the evils of the NFL? Well, yes, you probably would believe that.

After the jump, this week’s ultimate TMQ…

…if you didn’t like Denver versus Carolina, you don’t like sports.

Apparently, we don’t like sports.

Subsidized by taxpayers, rich and arrogant owing to antitrust waivers, caring for naught but power and profit, the N.F.L. couldn’t look worse.

So, just out of curiosity, if the NFL is “rich and arrogant owing to antitrust waivers”, why isn’t Major League Baseball also “rich and arrogant”?

To understand football’s outsize role in American society, we need to make the distinction between the N.F.L., which has no positive qualities, and the sport, which has many.

“No positive qualities.” The National Football League: as bad as Hitler.

…youth tackle football must end.

This part of his column is worth serious engagement, but we’ll get to that later.

A generation ago, it wasn’t known that sub-concussive hits to little children could have lifetime neurological consequences. Now that this is known, youth tackle football must stop.

But aren’t kids going to get “sub-concussive hits” at some point in childhood anyway? Falling off bikes, even with helmets? Falling down during flag football? Or baseball? Or taking a spill on the basketball court?

Serious question: is there a long-term study that compares kids who didn’t play tackle football before the age of 12 with kids who did? If so, what does that study show? And why wouldn’t Easterbrook mention it?

And I hope you’ve enjoyed this column, which concludes its run at The Upshot.

Well. Well well well. Well. Does TMQ mean “for the season”, or “forever”? Reply hazy, ask again later.

Stats.

In recent Super Bowls, Massachusetts, Colorado and New York have been overrepresented — bearing in mind that for N.F.L. purposes, New York is located in New Jersey — while the football-culture states were underrepresented.

We like to think of it as a pendulum. Sometimes it swings one way (the Dallas Cowboys of the 1970s). Sometimes it swings the other way.

Two of the three most recent Super Bowl winners hail from states where marijuana is legal.

So if we can get the Texas Ledge to legalize the goofy bush, the Texans, Cowboys, or whatever the Raiders become might win a Super Bowl?

Defense trumps offense. Gregg Easterbrook is tired of superhero movies; while this is certainly a defensible position…

In “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the supervillain levitated an entire city, in order to — this was never really explained, which perhaps was just as well.

Well, no, Gregg.

The National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety has found that aging former football players experience more cognitive decline than men of their birth year. The Centers for Disease Control has found aging former players live longer than comparable men and, despite the media impression, are less likely to commit suicide.

It almost seems like TMQ is arguing against himself here. On the one hand, cognitive decline. On the other hand, longer lives.

So how would TMQ reform the sport?

1. “eliminate the kickoff”. “After a field goal or touchdown, the opponent takes possession at its 20-yard line. After a safety, the opponent takes possession at its 35.” Well, that sounds exciting. But of course, TMQ isn’t about the NFL players, but about the high school and college kids. “If the N.F.L. eliminated the kickoff, college and high school would follow.”

2. “Eliminate the three-point and four-point stance, such that players begin each play with hands off the ground.” He may have a point here; we’re not sure we know enough to critique it. (But see below.)

3. “Ban Youth Tackle.”

This bombshell Mayo Clinic study, published in December, found that about a third of deceased men who played contact sports in youth had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, while deceased men who never played contact sports did not develop the condition.

Okay…

This Mayo Clinic study finds that playing football in high school appears mainly safe, not associated with late-life neurological problems; it’s youth tackle that triggers bad outcomes in late life.

Wait, are these the same Mayo Clinic study? And how did we get from “played contact sports in youth” to “youth tackle triggers bad outcomes”? There are other youth contact sports; as a matter of fact, the NYT itself has documented CTE cases in baseball and hockey players who started as youths.

If one Mayo Clinic study was a bombshell, this 2015 Boston University study is a guided missile: It finds that aging players who began playing full-pads tackle football before age 12 “performed significantly worse” on tests of mental acuity than those who did not don helmets until after age 12. For the latter group — those who waited till after age 12 to play tackle football — the sport was not especially damaging to later life.

Except maybe the missile isn’t so guided after all:

The rebuttals published by the Journal Neurology explain my own feelings about some of the problems with the study:
1) Sample size is tiny.
2) All subjects were retired NFL players and not representative of average youth football participants.
3) No control for cognitive deficits predating early entry into tackle football
4) Due to age of subjects, all participated (or not) in youth football as played, practiced and coached in the period 1960’s to 1980’s, which does not account for safer practices implemented since.

This is one of the reasons T.M.Q. believes books should be published anonymously — not to deceive readers about authors’ identities, but to remove same from consideration of the work. After an interval of, say, five years, the author’s name would be revealed. That way readers would respond exclusively to the writing, not to the authors’ reputations, lifestyle, politics or promotional campaigns.

So, when we’re reading a book, it’s wrong for us to take into account, say, the author’s appearances on NPR, or whether we’ve enjoyed previous books by the same author. Books should be published anonymously, so we have no knowledge about the writer that could influence our decisions.

Really.

In other news, Denver had a very good defense.

My bus from a downtown San Francisco hotel took a full hour to reach the stadium, and that was with light freeway traffic. In Santa Clara, there sure were no cable cars.

In other news, progress on nanoscale violins, to be played for privileged NYT writers who get to go to the Super Bowl and whinge about Bay Area traffic, continues apace.

The coin toss was accompanied by the Bay Area Super Bowl stars Marcus Allen, Fred Biletnikoff, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Jim Plunkett and Steve Young — nary a lineman to be seen.

We’re a little surprised that TMQ didn’t point out that it took six plus guys to do a simple coin toss.

Only the N.F.L. could combine gyrating pop stars, combat aircraft flyovers, public subsidies, brutal physical contact and endorsement of gay marriage into the most-watched event of the year.

This is the same NFL that has “no positive qualities”.

(Also, we’re just going to say it: we think Lady Gaga actually looks quite nice in that red Superb Owl outfit.)

If you’re going to be a grammar snob, try to get it right. Chicken-(salad) kicking: Carolina. Hidden play: Corey Brown’s dropped pass.

“Adventures in Officiating”: Super Bowl MVP (and, as TMQ does not hesitate to remind us, Tuesday Morning Quarterback Non-Quarterback Non-Running back N.F.L. M.V.P.) Von Miller should have been called for slapping Cam Newton’s helmet.

Michael Mandelbaum, a chaired professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, is an example of the contention that smart people are every bit as obsessed with sports as anyone else.

Is there anyone who contends to the contrary?

The relationship between American attitudes regarding the military, and enthusiasm for professional football, is explored in my new book “The Game’s Not Over,” which also goes into detail on the reforms this column proposes.

And those, friends, are the last lines of what may be the last TMQ in the NYT. No cosmic thoughts. No recommendation to engage in spiritual growth. No “Remember the Pueblo” or “Rotate your tires.” Just…a book plug.

If TMQ’s back next year, we will be, too. (With the provision that it has to be someplace reasonable, and not a click-bait site like Salon or Slate.)

(Maybe Easterbrook could start writing TMQ for the new nudity-free Playboy?)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2016 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Music, Neuroscience, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.