The other night I was with a varied group of people and we were discussing football. The discussion started with a debate on how football players make an obscene, ridiculous, unjust amount of money… TANGENT ALERT!
Here’s the thing– Shut the fuck up* about how much football players make. Football players make so much money because people watch football. Just like most other things in this world (Jessica Simpson’s career notwithstanding), the salary of football players is based on supply and demand. The owners write the checks because the stadiums are full and the merchandise is selling. It’s entertainment; no different than Bieber and Gaga and motherfucking U2, who also make an obscene amount of money– except they don’t risk massive damage to their bodies on a weekly basis. You can argue until you’re blue in the face that it’s stupid, ridiculous, unnecessary– But until you can get 90% of the people who watch football to stop watching football, nothing is going to change, so just shut the fuck up.
So anyway, like I said, I was suffering fools, and somehow the conversation devolved into… Oh! Wait! Another tangent!
That? Right up there? Is my most commonly used phrase. “Somehow the conversation devolved into…“. It is nearly impossible to have a conversation with me that does not turn into a sad shell of what an intelligent conversation should be. I don’t know how or why it happens– if it’s some flaw in me or the people I talk to– but it happens 80% of the time. Conversations with me are that high school quarterback who could’ve gone pro and made it big, but instead fell in love with methamphetamines and next thing you know he’s looking at 10-20 years for attempting to steal an ATM from a mall in broad daylight using only a skateboard and a watergun.
But I digress.
So somehow the conversation devolved into “Would you take a hit from a defensive tackle for $200,000?” I mean, if you are padded up and they are padded up, basic football rules apply, no intentional dickheaded helmet-to-helmet bullshit, would you do it?
Fuck yes I would! Here’s why:
1.) I’ve already taken a full-on running start tackle from a 300-pound man (that’s a story for another time)– I had no protective gear, and I survived. So I’m confident that I’d survive a second time.
2.) I could buy a lot of gummy bears or plane tickets or plane tickets made out of gummy bears with $200,000 and being sore for a week or maybe nursing a broken bone seems worth it to me. (Truth be told, I’d do it for less than $200,000.)
Would you take that hit from a defensive tackle for $200,000?
*If you are bitching about it. I don’t mean to imply you are bitching about it, but you may be, so if you are: shut the fuck up.
