Rick Reilly: 'Football getting harder to watch'

Still, there are things that can be done with equipment that do help prevent concussions, such as mouthpieces that fit better. I've had trainers and coaches in various sports explain to me that mouth guards can help mitigate the impact of a blow to the head.

The idea with the helmet is to try to lessen the impact to the head, which in turn lessens the movement of the brain inside the skull. How effective are they? That depends on who you ask, but there is at least some protection.

The treatment of concussions has also improved. Trainers, coaches and players at all levels at all levels are far more aware of the dangers of playing with a concussion, which carries a much higher risk of brain damage and death. The number of deaths related to concussions is still relatively low related to the number of athletes playing the sport, but a very high percentage of them were cases of athletes competing when they had not fully recovered from a concussion and sustaining another brain injury.

Of course, you still have idiot coaches, trainers and players who ignore the dangers, but the information is there now in a way that it was not previously.

 

I'd Reilly wasn't completely full of shit, he tells his bosses he's done on Monday Night Footba and won't go to or cover any NFL games.
Since he is completely full of shit, he's going to continue to write columns like this.

 

Hey, come on, now. It took a lot of talent to make that many serious issues all about him.

 

Who is Reilly kidding? He's just looking for another excuse to cover more golf.

 

Why?

Do reporters only cover topics they like? Since when?

 

Perhaps only hawks should cover foreign wars.

 

As soon as I saw the thread title, the first thing I thought of was that's purely coincidental that Reilly is getting harder to read.

 

If you're Rick Reilly, you do. It's been like that for him since the mid 1990s.

 

Exactly. So dumb.

 

I think it's like that for most of the big-timers at ESPN & the other networks. Chris Fowler covers the Australian Open because he loves tennis, in addition to college football.

Costas has threatened to leave NBC several times over the years since they lost baseball. The MLB Network's formation helped NBC keep him.

 

For some reason, this seems to come up in sports the most. And it even comes up here, and pretty frequently.

There have been dozens of posts through the years with some variation of, "Does so-and-so even like Sports X? Maybe he needs to cover something else if he doesn't."

I'd hear it from fans a lot on my beat, when I had to be critical. They found it galling that someone who would "appreciate" covering Team X wasn't getting to do it, while Dick Whitman, who "hated" Team X, did.

 

Yeah, because too many view sports as the "toy department", and the attitudes of sports reporters is a big reason why.