"Las Vegas bookmakers make their money by balancing their risk, but sometimes they simply come out on the wrong side of too many bets." With the regular 2012 NFL season now over and the playoffs about to begin, please take a moment and shed a tear -- or more likely, raise your beer -- as you consider
the terrible beating Las Vegas sports books absorbed in 2012. (LAT link, so potentially behind a paywall depending on your number of previous visits in last 30 days.)
[more inside]
posted by mosk
on Jan 2, 2013 -
30 comments
"Garrett Reid, the oldest son of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, was found dead Sunday morning in his room at training camp at Lehigh University."
Garrett's
legal troubles and
struggle with addiction were widely publicized over the years due to his high profile father. After leaving prison he fought hard to change this legacy and was employed as a trainer with the team at the time of his death.
"Garrett’s road through life was not always an easy one. He faced tremendous personal challenges with bravery and spirit. As a family, we stood by him and were inspired as he worked to overcome those challenges. Even though he lost the battle that has been ongoing for the last eight years, we will always remember him as a fighter who had a huge, loving heart."
[more inside]
posted by furiousxgeorge
on Aug 7, 2012 -
17 comments
The game that you fell in love with as a child will seem lost; a thump on the floorboard of your new Mercedes, swerved at high speeds to avoid a shadow in the night. The sights and sounds and smells of football, sensual memories that stir the passions in the soul, will be reconceived and recategorized, buried behind newer, odorless versions.
Former Bronco Nate Jackson
offers wisdom on the trappings of stardom to two young draftees.
posted by swift
on May 1, 2012 -
18 comments
Does Football have a Future?: Football players are anywhere from five to nineteen times more likely than a member of the general population to suffer from a dementia-like illness. This is likely a result of
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (
picture), neurodegeneration caused by receiving multiple concussions or even subconcussions that are not detectable around time of impact. CTE has been linked to
other mood and behavior changes, including suicidal depression (a great review of the medical literature generally), and has been found in football players as young as
21. And, of course, there is the sometimes debilitating physical disability (either acutely or later in life) from playing a hard-contact sport. The NFL has a long history of adjusting safety standards in bits and pieces (e.g.,
legalization of the forward pass) to meet public concern over potential injury and disability from playing the sport, though still to some degree publicly
denies a connection between football and brain damage. New Yorker writer
Ben McGrath talks to football players (past and present), their families (often left behind by untimely death or dementia-twilight), franchise heads, and doctors to explore this history, the crushing legacy of sports injuries, and the question of whether it is possible to reform the rules to minimize the risk of concussion and thus the risk of CTE (if any such risk is acceptable). Would it still be football if such changes were to tone down the violence? (
Yes, No [from iconoclast Buzz Bissinger]) And, uncomfortably: is the sport of football unethical for its players, even if entered into on their own volition? (
previously in the New Yorker; previously on MetaFilter
1, 2, 3)
[more inside]
posted by Keter
on Feb 13, 2012 -
117 comments
Malcolm Gladwell did an article about this in the New Yorker, but
this GQ article shows the opposition the researchers who discovered CTE faced from the NFL.
posted by reenum
on Dec 19, 2009 -
61 comments
There's an excellent
two part dialog between
Bill Simmons and
Malcolm Gladwell on ESPN's Page 2 this week. The two cover a wide variety of topics such as writing, how a kid with no TV from the middle of nowhere in Canada can be a sports fan, the NFL, the economics of sports, and everyone's favorite NBA GM Isiah Thomas.
posted by togdon
on Mar 3, 2006 -
13 comments
The Steelers were 7-5, then won their final four regular-season games to secure the AFC's last playoff spot. They went to Cincinnati and won a wild-card game. They won at Indianapolis, which had the league's best record. And then they handed Denver its first home loss in the AFC championship game.
And now they're the first 6th seed playoff team ever to
win the Super Bowl. History made.
posted by allkindsoftime
on Feb 5, 2006 -
138 comments
Supersized in the NFL Analyzing data from the 2003-2004 season, researchers say "more than a quarter of NFL players had a body mass index that qualified them as
class 2 obesity" -- equivalent to a 6-foot man weighing between 260 and 300 pounds.
Even those players weren't the biggest ones:
the study counted more than 60 players -- 3 percent -- with body mass indexes placing them into
class 3 obesity, with individual weights approaching 400 pounds.
"I don't know what's going on in the minds of coaches", said lead researcher Dr.
Joyce Harp, an assistant professor of nutrition and medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Players' growing girth "is a major concern," said
Dr. Arthur Roberts, a former NFL quarterback and retired
heart surgeon (.pdf file) whose
Living Heart Foundation works with the players' union to evaluate heart-related health risks faced by current and retired players. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Mar 1, 2005 -
42 comments
Going Poston! - This is a
Flash parody about the NFL's most notorious player agents, the Postons, Carl and Kevin.
This article from a month ago, pretty much sums up why they're becoming so infamous.
posted by Witty
on May 13, 2004 -
7 comments
On sunday, Rush Limbaugh commented that Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, was overrated and was only seen favourably by the media because they want to see a black quarterback do well.
McNabb responded, and earlier tonight
Limbaugh resigned from his post on ESPN's pre-game show. N.D. Kalu, one of the Eagle's defensive ends, offered this choice quote: "He speaks well, he's well-read, but he's an idiot."
posted by The God Complex
on Oct 2, 2003 -
100 comments
Seahawks Stadium was open to the public for the first time this past weekend, with activities on the field for kids, concession stands open with video menus advertising $3.25 hot dogs, and tours of the private box seats and the media room. It's a large stadium with fantastic views of downtown Seattle from some seats and views overlooking Elliot Bay from the western railings, the best hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars can buy.
On Saturday, the first day of the public open house,
a man jumped to his death from a northwest ramp of the stadium.
posted by dan_of_brainlog
on Jul 22, 2002 -
15 comments
"It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't World War III" Watch the Browns/Jaguars game? Maybe it was a bad call, but throwing plastic bottles
full of beer? Anybody who knows me knows I speak out loudly and firmly against the ridiculous sports culture we have in this country. This incident makes me ashamed to be a Clevelander, even a transplanted one. What is it that gets people this riled up and stupid?
posted by starvingartist
on Dec 17, 2001 -
120 comments
NFL Realignment. Seattle returns home. North and South finally get representation after being discrimated against for years by East, West, and Central. And of course, plenty of work for designers and coders to integrate new graphics and site changes. Yippee!
posted by lescour
on May 22, 2001 -
12 comments
