This is one of those things where people are afraid to see the sausage being made.

It sounds gruesome, but I would guess it's SOP in the NFL. Football has always been a violent sport and part of its appeal to players has been that violence. With help from the media, the NFL has cultivated an image over the past 30 years of football being a "war." There's a George Carlin bit where he compares football and baseball, and how we think of the gridiron being an actual battlefield. NFL Films glorified the violence and the gore in cinematically breathtaking manner. ESPN plays up big hits routinely. All along they have promoted this culture, and when players start buying into it and realizing they can obtain fame and make more money, the NFL has to feign outrage while the media acts indignant.

It's ridiculous, and it's made more ridiculous by the fact that the NFL has prospered in the way they market the game while providing no help for players who now have mushy brains.

I laughed so hard when I first watched that.

tkihshbt wrote:

I laughed so hard when I first watched that.

Carlin was the best. Or he's at least in the top two with Richard Pryor. I like Lewis Black, but he's basically doing an updated version of Carlin's act. And Patton Oswalt's hilarious "Sky Cake" bit is Carlin's take on religion, with fewer cuss words.

Not sure if you follow hockey, but a few years back NHL teams stopped identifying player injuries because teams knew that opponents would go after those injuries.  Now most injuries are labeled either "upper body injuries" or "lower body injuries."

Calling out the body part is a bit over the top.  But Williams was simply saying something that has been happening in the NFL and NHL for decades, regardless of whether or not it was discussed before the game.

AP, I know this will sound hollow, but (especially in regards to Crabtree) there's very little that Williams is going to say to fire up an NFL player to go above and beyond. In the world of the secondary, there's just no time to decide where to hit a guy. You either try to end his life, or grab him, or lay off for some reason (it can happen). You don't get enough time to think about the number, the side you want to hit, and the side of the knee on the side you want to hit. You think about shit like that and Crabtree will already be dancing in your end zone.

I also think you're already dealing with a group of men that are trained from very early on to exploit every weakness, get in someone's head, and rattle them. If that involves a handslap off the line when you know the WR lined up across from you have a broken index finger, or pressing off the outside of a left tackle, and driving from a lower angle than normal because you saw his left knee in a brace... These guys are already dirty as sin, there's nothing Williams can do to inspire new heights in my opinion.

In that sense, Williams is a moron for mentioning Crabtrees knee. Mentioning the head? That's just funny. Hit a guy in the helmet and you'll cause a buttload of issues for your team winning the game. I know as people who don't play football, we want to run with this, because this is as wrong as you can get! However, to be honest, it really doesn't make a shit-bit of difference in a game. Any player who's trying to put Favre in the hospital for $1000.00 was already going to try to put him in the hospital just to get him off the field.