Injured Masculinity
Throughout my research I found much of what I had expected. There were many instances of masculinity appearing in the NFL injury media especially before the 2012 lawsuit. When looking through these articles many players would be interviewed to discuss their injury, this resulted in many of the players speaking about very masculine ideas. Many of them discuss how they don’t like to be injured because it shows that they are weak, it also means they let the team down, in the words of Justin Smiley a former Miami Dolphins offensive guard; “‘Some talked about not wanting to let down the team. Others mentioned the importance of avoiding any sign of weakness in a sport where “warrior” and “gladiator” are viewed as compliments of the highest order.”’ (Associated Press, 2009). Here we see a former player talking about the mentality of football players and how they think they have to “fight through injuries” and to be respected by their teammates despite the health implications of that. This is relative to my data where I found that 19 out of the 21 cases of players/news articles talking about fighting through injuries were found before 2011 when the NFL was sued by several players over injury.
Before 2011 some of the articles also heavily downplay injuries or violent contact in football in general. They try to make the violence of it seem very normal as we see in the way legendary Chargers Fullback Lorenzo Neal mentions in an interview with SFGate about how playing Fullback requires severe violence and is part of the game; “”You’re in a car wreck every play,” Neal said by telephone from San Diego. “It’s different than a lineman, it’s different than all the positions, because you’re five yards in the backfield, the linebacker’s five yards deep. It’s a nice little collision. Your body is not meant to do this.”” (Miller, 2004). We see how in this Ryan Neal talks about collisions your body is not meant to do but describes it as a nice little collision. S NEal continues to be interviewed and they talk about an injury that changed his entire career. This injury was so serious it forced Ryan Neal to change his position from Running Back to Fullback, now for an injury to change someone’s position it must have caused serious damage to their body but when Neal talks about it he doesn’t seem to mention the severity and rather focuses on his new job; “”Crazy,” he said. “Ever since (the injury), I just kind of switched roles and put on the hard hat.”” (Miller, 2004). Here Neal seems to have shrugged off a potential life changing injury and continues to play football in an even more violent position.
Now all of the older articles clearly have a much more masculine focus when discussing injuries and the violent nature of football as a whole but as for the newer articles they seem to take injuries much more serious. You can see people listening to medical advice more or just being more aware of the serious effects these injuries could have after 2011. After 2011 we see a serious rise in the amount of times people are taking Injury seriously within the articles as 52 of the 72 instances of taking injuries seriously that I recorded were from articles after 2011. Many of these are shown in the articles in the way they talk about the injury itself, their overall reaction to the injury, the severity, and the instant reaction on the field. This can be seen after Dak Prescott suffered a gruesome ankle injury against their long time rivals the New York Giants. There is definitely bad blood between these teams and perhaps back in the day you would have seen Giants players and fans cheering for something like this, not anymore however as Mike McCarthy describes it in an interview to ESPN; “”It shows the love that people have for him and the respect people have for him,” McCarthy said. “To see both sidelines come together like that, the way the crowd reacted, I’ve never seen anything like it.”” (Archer 2021). Here longtime head coach in the NFL Mike McCarthy discusses his shock at how serious everyone took it and how they came together with both teams to support the injured player. This shows the shift in how news media reported on injuries and how society is moving beyond overly masculine norms.
Accountability
One theme I found was that 24 out of 28 times I saw articles attacking the NFL it was a source from after 2011 and 21 out of 28 times it was from a national news source. These can come in many forms from players criticizing the league, fans criticizing coaches, interviewees criticizing medical staff or however there seems to be serious questioning about how the injury is being handled. This is a good thing however since the NFL has been found to hide information about injuries many times. This can be seen many times when talking about head injuries specifically. Recently when Tua Tagovailoa Miami Dolphins QBs suffered 3 concussions just this year alone, many people were worried about the situation; “The National Football League has a sad history of denying and downplaying the seriousness of head injuries — and of promising to do better. The Tagovailoa episode suggests it has not changed.” (Washington Post, 2022). Here we can clearly see the authors of this news article doubting the NFL and how it handles concussions over time and is using this example of Tua to get that point across. These doubts did not just come after he got the injuries they came directly after Tua first got hurt and fans saw him wobbling off the field; “It was truly a shock to see Tagovailoa given the green light to return to the game. He looked very dazed after taking a hit from the Bills defense and was wobbly when he got back to his feet. The Dolphins insist that the hit actually aggravated a back injury that Tagovailoa had been dealing with, which is what caused the wobbly nature of his walking.” (Rasmussen, 2022). Here we see that the doubts started after seeing Tua get up and walk funny, later the Dolphins ensured everyone it was his back that caused the walking and later the public learned that was not always the case and it was actually a concussion. Clearly the Dolphins were trying to hide something and clearly fans have valid reasons to doubt the handling of injuries in the NFL.
I did however find instances where the news articles claim the NFL has done enough to protect players and instead players need to focus more on protecting themselves. “The problem, however, is quarterbacks who waste the protection the NFL has given them by needlessly and idiotically putting themselves in harm’s way. Two words: Get down!” (Schottey, 2013). This is a direct contrast to the examples we saw before this time the article is stating that the NFL has changed so many rules and policies to try and protect QBs that it is now the turn of QBs to instead ensure their own safety when on the football field. This is very interesting as it was the only instance of this I saw and brings up an interesting point. Why don’t people talk more about players ensuring their own safety on the field and instead quickly run and blame the league over their handling over injuries.
Not a laughing matter
One of the more interesting discoveries is how some articles deal with injuries in a more joking matter. Whether this be the player or the reporter I found 14 instances of players or reporters joking around about their injuries or injuries in general and 13 of these 14 incidents were from regional news sources instead of the more national one. In the SFGate we see an interview with 49ers lineman Jeremy Newberry where he and the news reporter decide to take a more comical stance on their interview about his Injured Knee where they go right to the source of the injury, literally; “The knee spoke to this reporter Tuesday afternoon in pops, crackles and crinkly sounds that were translated by Newberry. “Ouch,” the knee said in a prepared statement.” (Ostler, 2005). Throughout this article you will listen to Newberry’s knee describe the pain it feels and how it won’t stop the player from playing but will never be the same again. Clearly the news article and Newberry are trying to make light of a serious situation and add humor into it instead of talking about how this could affect him later in life.
There are more examples of news media making jokes about injuries in the NFL. In an interview with the Denver post legendary receiver Ed McCaffery whose son now plays in the NFL as well had this to say for the reporters; “Ed being Ed, McCaffrey couldn’t resist lacing his answer with humor. “I don’t know, I don’t remember,” said the former Broncos receiver who suffered a massive concussion in the final game of the 2003 regular season, and his career, at Green Bay. “Seriously, I probably don’t remember, but going back to high school, I would have to say double digits.”” (Klis, 2006). McCaffery is not only joking around but he is downplaying his concussions by casually joking around about potentially having well over double digit concussions that definitely won’t affect the way his brain functions in the future.
When coming back from the injury the Coach has the final say on whether you will play in that game or not. Buccaneers old receiver Joey Galloway was just coming back from a serious shoulder surgery and still struggling with that while also having issues with his groin, two injuries you don’t want to mess around with. When asked by the Herald Tribune about a timetable for his return he had this to say; “”You see the white tiger, there’s always posted times of when he gets to eat,” Galloway said. “The zookeeper posts that time. Coach (Gruden) is the zookeeper. That’s what he’s trying to say. It’s his decision on when I get to eat. I hope I get to eat on Sunday, but we will see.”” (Balog, 2008). You can see he is making a joke out of the situation he was in during this time. He is describing his Coach deciding whether he is healthy enough to safely play football to a zookeeper letting a White tiger eat.